Re: Example canvas element use - accessibility concerns

Alexander Surkov wrote:
> I would guess canvas accessibility problem can be target for expert
> handlers group (http://www.linuxfoundation.org/en/Accessibility/Handlers).
> They develop plug-able mechanism to allow AT work with specialized
> markups. In the case of Bespin we don't have specialized markup
> actually, we have JavaScript code. Any way idea of plug-able mechanism
> might work here. But it sounds Bespin guys don't care about
> accessibility so I'm not sure they will be happy to create specialized
> JS classes for AT assuming we have working plug-able mechanism :)

Indeed. Rather than decrying the use of <canvas> in this way, it might 
be worth presuming that there were solid technical reasons (e.g. [1]) 
for choosing to use it, and then working out either

a) what are the deficiencies in the platform that prevent another, more 
accessible, solution from meeting the same needs
or
b) how can the platform be extended to make it possible to do this kind 
of thing in an accessible way.

For example would it be possible to make a DOM interface to the platform 
accessibility APIs that would meet the needs of authors trying to 
hand-roll their UI in this way?

[1] http://benzilla.galbraiths.org/2009/02/17/bespin-and-canvas/

Received on Wednesday, 18 February 2009 14:33:55 UTC