Becky J. Gibson

Enabling an accessible web 2.0

The next generation of the Web is relying on new technologies to build rich interfaces and applications which enable community, collaboration, social networking and enhanced interactions. This has implication for people with disabilities who have come to rely on the Web to provide more independence, work opportunities, and social interactions. New specifications such as Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) are being developed which provide more semantic information about Web components and can enable enhanced accessibility. In addition, toolkits and testing tools are making it easier to reach the nirvana of accessibility by default in Web 2.0 projects.

DHTML accessibility: solving the JavaScript accessibility problem

This project demonstrates fully keyboard accessible components on a web page working with a screen reader. By adding the appropriate semantic data to web components and having user agents translate this to the platform accessibility application programming interfaces, the user interface of a web site can be made fully accessible to keyboard only and vision impaired users. In addition, the web component interface will operate in the same manner as client application components.

Web 2.0

The Web is growing and changing from a paradigm of static publishing to one of participation and interaction. This change has implications for people with disabilities who rely on access to the Web for employment, information, entertainment, and increased independence. The interactive and collaborative nature of Web 2.0 can present access problems for some users. There are some best practices which can be put in place today to improve access. New specifications such as Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) and IAccessible2 are opening the doors to increasing the accessibility of Web 2.0 and beyond.