Pitfalls to Creating Accessible Content
Scripting and Interactivity:
- Some user agents don’t support all or any JavaScript
- To be interoperable we need to ensure that our pages work with scripting on or off
- Scripting traditionally involves the mouse, but what about people that can’t/don’t use a mouse?
- Avoid using JavaScript that breaks the way that things are expected to work
- do NOT use onchange in select box menus
- do NOT just use onMouseOver and onMouseOut (requires mouse)
- Also include onFocus, onBlur (to give the same functionality for keyboard control only)
- <noscript>...</noscript> assumed to be needed, but it rarely is
- for more on scripting you need to research:
- unobtrusive javascript
- graceful degradation
- progressive enhancement
(l) When pages utilize scripting languages to display content, or to create interface elements, the information provided by the script shall be identified with functional text that can be read by assistive technology.
Related Guidelines: 508 §1194.22(l); WCAG 6.3, 6.4, 8.1, 9.3; IBM 5.