Re: Possible Scripting Techniques to help with baseline evaluation

On 4/19/05, Becky_Gibson@notesdev.ibm.com <Becky_Gibson@notesdev.ibm.com> wrote:
> -how to use the onload event to set focus to a particular form element on
> the page.   

This is not an accessibility enhancement! it's a serious accessibility
concern of mine, it violates that focus should be under user control. 
I regularly am typing in one input and the onload event (which
obviously fires considerably later than the user can start interacting
with a page) moves me back to another.  It's possible that giving
focus to an element as soon as that individual element has rendered is
an accessible enhancement, but onload is certainly not appropriate!

<form name=egg ... >
<input type=text name=chicken id=chickenForm>
<script type="text/javascript">
if (document.forms) {
 var eggForm=document.forms.egg;
 if (eggForm) {
if (eggForm.chicken && eggForm.chicken.focus) {
eggForm.chicken.focus();
}
}
</script>

Would be that method.

> -how to catch the onchange on an input field, validate the contents and set
> focus to the next element in the form - or something similar that
> specifically sets focus to elements in some order 

Could you describe how this is an accessibility enhancement?  I
thought you were suggesting a US formatted telephone number type thing
where after entering 3 digits for the area code it moves automatically
to the next field?  But I see that's listed seperately (and yes I find
it controversial :-)

> -provide alternative text sizing on the page (in combination with CSS). Here
> is an example for alistapart:  Power To The People: Relative Font Sizes 
> [4]  Warning - it uses JavaScript uris :-) 

So it uses non-standard techniques defined by no standard, I simply do
not see the value in even suggesting the technique.  Strange UI's on
individual pages really are pointless, it's the job of the user agent
to provide font sizing controls, and _all_ of them already do a very
good job of it, what's the use case of introducing confusing
interfaces?

> -image replacement using JavaScript.  JavaScript Image Replacement[6] 

I cannot see how this technique is accessible.  There is no way that
the availablility of javascript means that user does not need to
enlarge their text (a technique which fails utterly with this method) 
Also the inability to cut/paste or highlight parts of text limits
accessibility.

Cheers,

Jim.

Received on Tuesday, 19 April 2005 22:09:22 UTC