AJAX v Accessibility on Rails: Fallbacks
Monday 16th January 2006I’ve tentatively placed a toe aboard the AJAX bandwagon, thanks largely to Rails which makes it possible, even painless, to achieve AJAX functionality without having to learn Javascript.1
While AJAX, done properly, can be a big win for Usability for those whose browsers support it, I am also concerned with issues of Accessibility, and indeed keeping things usable for those with non-AJAX browsers.
Standards-Schmandards have come up with some useful hints about how to make AJAX pages more accessible to screenreaders, such as providing an option to pop up an alert box instead of, or as well as, simply updating the page. This is good advice, but it’s only half the story. These methods don’t help those without Javascript at all, or with non-AJAX-aware browsers.
In this article I will detail one method to help ensure accessibility for such people, without compromising on AJAX spiffiness, and most importantly without causing much extra work for us poor developers. The example is in Rails, but may be of interest to those using other frameworks. (more…)