The
World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has introduced a suite of documents designed to
make it easier for website developers to engineer accessible content using
technologies including
Ajax
and
Dynamic
HTML.
The organisation's Accessibility Initiative (WAI) will allow website
developers to make dynamic web content usable to people with disabilities.
The first public working drafts of the Accessible Rich Internet Application
suite include the WAI-ARIA Roadmap, WAI-ARIA Roles, and WAI-ARIA States and
Properties.
"As people are demanding more information, more responsive applications and
richer experiences from the web an explosion in technologies that exclude access
to many people is growing," said Rich Schwerdtfeger, IBM Distinguished Engineer
and author of the WAI-ARIA Roadmap.
"This new suite of documents is significant because it will help developers
gain access to the tools needed to support people with disabilities on the web.
"ARIA is our first step in bringing the richer, dynamic web content
experience to all users of the web, by providing technology enhancements and
examples for better, more accessible implementations."
Schwerdtfeger explained that assistive technologies, including screen
readers, speech dictation software and on-screen keyboards, can help make the
web more accessible to people with disabilities.
To accomplish this, these tools require information about the semantics of
specific portions of a document in order to present those portions in an
accessible form.
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