RE: is javascript considered good wacg 2.0 practice? [SEC=UNOFFICIAL]

This has been an interesting discussion and one that I feel was/is needed. But agree that it has gotten away from the initial topic/subject. Perhaps a new topic is needed?

I think there is still a lot of confusion that has possibly come from, as Adam has noted (well below), interpretations of conformance requirement 4 and the definitions of 'relied upon' & in particular 'accessibility supported'. 

My interpretation of this is that what is 'accessibility support(ed)' should be determined by who we are designing for and what their circumstances. The conformance page of w3 says: 

"The Working Group, therefore, limited itself to defining what constituted support and defers the judgment of how much, how many, or which AT must support a technology to the community and to entities closer to each situation that set requirements for an organization, purchase, community, etc."

Prior to this statement they acknowledge that "There is a need for an external and international dialogue on this topic" and provide 5 topics which could be explored.

I'm from a Government department developing solutions for the public as a whole & in some cases for disabled users in particular. Two sections of these 5 topics stand out to me.

From 'Topic 1':

"1. Accessibility support of Web technologies varies by environment
◦Content posted to the public Web may need to work with a broader range of user agents and assistive technologies, including older versions."

From 'Topic5':

"5. Currently assistive technology that is affordable by the general public is often very poor
◦Creating content that can't be used by the general public with disabilities should be avoided. In many cases, the cost of assistive technologies is too high for users who need it. Also, the capabilities of free or low cost AT is often so poor today that Web content cannot be realistically restricted to this lowest (or even middle) common denominator. This creates a very difficult dilemma that needs to be addressed."

With the above in mind and considering the lack of accurate information regarding what users are using (browsers/ATs/etc) and why they are using it and indeed their proficiency in using these tools, we can't in my mind rely on JavaScript availability. 

I also for this reason would not rely on WAI-ARIA or PDF alone.

In a closed environment, or a site/service where use is opt-in I say go for broke.

We should be thinking about the user, after all it is why we're here, and as I said in my first reply to this discussion we should design for flexibility and inclusivity.

Leon

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Cooper [mailto:cooperad@bigpond.com] 
Sent: Saturday, 15 December 2012 1:09 PM
To: 'W3C WAI ig'
Subject: RE: is javascript considered good wacg 2.0 practice?

Hi all, 

May I suggest, with all due respect, that we return to the substance of this thread rather than debate questionable analogies and/or tangential issues?

Is JS considered good WCAG 2.0 practice? 

First, Javascript is not a practice. It is a ubiquitous, useful, and enduring  scripting language  that is accessibility neutral.  WCAG includes numerous sufficient techniques and failures that can inform implementations of javascript to improve accessibility. 

Second, according to my interpretation of conformance requirement 4, and the definitions of ‘accessibility supported’ and ‘relied upon,  if javascript is implemented in a way that is accessibility supported  and this content is ‘relied upon’ for conformance, then the same content must also conform if javascript is ‘turned off or is not supported’. 
(See http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/#cc4,

http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/#accessibility-supporteddef,

http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-WCAG20-20081211/#reliedupondef)

It seems to me that part of the problem(s) addressed in this thread lurks in the precision of the definition of 'accessibility supported'. 

Is it, for example, appropriate to deduce from this that the absence of support (i.e., due to age or sophistication or even malfunction) for a particular technology in a given user agent means that content cannot be relied upon to conform regardless of whether that technology is implemented in ways that are accessibility supported in other user agents?

The list's thoughts about accessibility supported would be instructive ... 

Regards,
Adam 

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Simpson [mailto:alan@coolnerds.com]
Sent: Saturday, December 15, 2012 11:44 AM
To: Karen Lewellen
Cc: Ramón Corominas; W3C WAI ig
Subject: Re: is javascript considered good wacg 2.0 practice?

You're right, it's easy to create a website with CSS and HTML alone. not JavaScript. But an operating system is software that that drives hardware, and hardware does nothing without electricity. It's not possible for an operating system to do anything without power. It would be like trying to drive a car without gas and a motor.


You can certainly power up a computer without an OS, those of us whole build computers do it all the time. But you can't get the computer to do anything useful until you install and OS (operating system).





On Dec 14, 2012, at 7:12 PM, Karen Lewellen <klewellen@shellworld.net>
wrote:

> lol!
> i do not think those ideas match exactly.  One can create a site that 
> does
not use java script.  one can not run a computer without power, although you can power a computer in theory without an operating system.
> Karen
> 
> On Sat, 15 Dec 2012, Ramón Corominas wrote:
> 
>> Karen wrote:
>> 
>>> if it is possible for it to be turned off then that possibility 
>>> exists because people will want to turn it off.  Therefore your site 
>>> should do basic things without it, end of discussion.
>> 
>> 
>> A computer has a button to turn it off. That possibility exists 
>> because
people will want to turn it off. Therefore, the operating system should do basic things without power. End of discussion.
>> 
>> Regards,
>> Ramón.
>> 
>>

Received on Tuesday, 18 December 2012 04:27:16 UTC