Accessibility, ARIA, AJAX and Accessible Scripting

ARIA Editors' Drafts (public as of 29 May 2008)

1. Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) 1.0 (Editors' Draft)
2. ARIA 1.0 RoadMap (Editors' Draft)
3. ARIA 1.0 Primer (Editors' Draft)
4. ARIA 1.0 Best Practices (Editors' Draft)

Public ARIA Working Drafts

1. ARIA 1.0
2. ARIA 1.0 Roadmap
3. ARIA 1.0 Primer
4. ARIA 1.0 Best Practices

ARIA Specific Resources & Implementations

Developers' Resources

• Code Talks
  • How to Create Accessible Javascript Widgets
  • How to Use ARIA Live Regions for Dynamic Content
• WebA11y (Becky Gibson, IBM)
  • AJAX Examples
  • ARIA Examples
  • Recorded keyboard, low-vision, and screen reader demos
  • Becky Gibson's WebA11y Blog
• dojo toolkit
• Web 2.0 Development with WAI-ARIA
• ARIA in FireFox
  • User Agent Implementation Guide to ARIA (Mozilla Developers' Network)
  • ARIA in GMail Alerts
• Opera Developers' Introduction to WAI-ARIA

Highly Recommended Reading (Short Articles Cast Long Shadows)

• ARIA Core Conversation (Juicy Studios)
• WAI ARIA Live Regions
• The AxsJAX Framework for ARIA (Juicy Studios)
• Improving AJAX Application Accessibility with Screen Readers (Juicy Studios)
• Improving AJAX Applications for JAWS Users (Juicy Studios)
• ARIA in HTML
• Safari Gets Support for ARIA (Juicy Studios)

ARIA in AJAX

• AxsJAX: Access-Enabling AJAX (google-axsjax)
  • AxsJAX FAQ

A Few Key Abstractions Provided by AxsJAX

• the ability to cause assistive technology (AT) to speak. By using WAI-ARIA, AxsJAX is able to manipulate the DOM such that an ARIA-aware browser plus assistive technology (AT) combination will generate and receive the necessary events which cause the AT to speak what the web developer wishes to be spoken.

• a content navigation rules system built around the idea of multiple trails through a page. provides users with ability to select which trail they wish to follow, and then navigate through just the items in that trail.

AxsJAX Resources

1. AxsJAX FAQ
2. AxsJAX & the ARIA Framework
3. AxsJAX Showcase
4. Accessibility Mashups with AxsJAX
5. Enhancing Web 2.0 Accessibility (TV Raman & Charles Chen - YouTube video)

Related Resources

Other Accessible AJAX, Javascript, ECMAScript, Projects & Information

• Accessmonkey
• Greasemonkey
  • Greasemonkey Form Help (Juicy Studios)
  • Heading Navigation Greasemonkey User Script (Juicy Studios)
• Server-Side Dynamic Style Sheet Switcher (Juicy Studios)

Test Pages

• iCITA ARIA Examples by far the most comprehensive set of test documents to date
• Sample ARIA-enabled widgets (Mozilla Dev)