RE: Any examples of <NOSCRIPT>?

Hi David,

There is nothing in the Section 508 Standards that rules out the NOSCRIPT
tag. They have said that if you do depend on JavaScript then that better be
accessible by assistive technology. If you don't depend on JavaScript, i.e.,
if you used NOSCRIPT effectively, then you are home free.

By my accounting I have not yet seen an effective use of JavaScript,
effective in the sense of providing content that replaces and is (in some
sense) equivalent to what the script would provide.

Jim
jim@jimthatcher.com
Accessibility Consulting
http://jimthatcher.com
512-306-0931

-----Original Message-----
From: David Poehlman [mailto:poehlman1@home.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2001 8:35 PM
To: jim@jimthatcher.com; W3c-Wai-Ig@W3. Org; Kynn Bartlett
Subject: Re: Any examples of <NOSCRIPT>?


ah, but that is the crux of the matter.  I'd like to seem them do the
right thing for us all, but this raises the question and now I am as
confused as jimmie.  I had thought they were ruling the noscript tag
out with their rule.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kynn Bartlett" <kynn@reef.com>
To: <jim@jimthatcher.com>; "W3c-Wai-Ig@W3. Org" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: February 20, 2001 8:48 PM
Subject: RE: Any examples of <NOSCRIPT>?


At 05:24 PM 2/20/2001, Jim Thatcher wrote:
>I really didn't expect any, and good for you for finding a "real
life" use
>of NOSCRIPT. This one at http://www.section508.gov, of all places, is
>certainly real life and it is effective. What it does is provide text
at the
>top of the page that in effect says "we use JavaScript for XYZ and
since you
>don't support JavaScript you are out of lunch as regards XYZ."

Actually I am not entirely sure it says that.  It looks like they
are trying to say "if you had javascript, you'd see <x>, but since
you don't, we will tell you the content you are missing; in other
words, the content of the popup."

>I really think that is kind of an ingenious idea. "We're using
JavaScript
>and you don't get the benefit of it, so TOUGH!"

Hmmm.  I've seen sites that do that, I don't think this is the case
though.  I think they are trying to do it right, even though I think
they don't do it particularly well.

>I guess I would say the instance is certainly not ideal. The
prescription
>for NOSCRIPT is that authors will provide alternate content when
scripting
>is not available. This example does not do that because I read
"alternate"
>do be in some sense equivalent.
>Do you agree?

Not really.  I think they are well-meaning but they did not consider
overall usability, just accessibility.  Surely this does indeed
provide
the content in an alternate form; it's just awful clumsy.  I think a
better idea would have been for them to provide the same functionality
in a different way; for example, making each link go to the page in
question with a pop-up (as now) if javascript is enabled, and making
it go to an "exit page" if javascript is not enabled.  That might
work better than this <noscript> message, which I honestly would have
put somewhere near the bottom of the page.  But at least they allow
you to skip it, I think.

--Kynn


--
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@reef.com>
Technical Developer Liaison
Customer Management/Edapta
Reef North America
Tel +1 949-567-7006
_____________________________________
ALL YOUR BUSINESS ARE BELONG TO US.
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Received on Tuesday, 20 February 2001 22:04:37 UTC