Will Jaws 9 support Ajax?

July 20th, 2007

Ian Lloyd over at Accessify has posted an article on his blog about a rumour he has heard about Jaws 9.0 potentially supporting Ajax. According to Ian’s source, the release notes for Jaws 8.0 made mention of this functionality but they were later revised and the section removed.

The web is becoming a much more interesting and usable place to be due the increasing use of Ajax on sites. It has been a big concern of everyones though that Ajax was being used unnecessarily to the detriment of users with visual disabilities. Whilst Ajax support in Jaws 9.0 won’t eliminate these issues (or indeed the issues which Ajax causes for users with other disabilities), if the rumours are true then it is a huge leap forward in Screen Reader manufacturers starting to take responsibility for updating their products in line with wider internet trends.

For far too long now, the main drive for the adoption of Accessibility and Web Standards has come from developers themselves, seemingly endlessly shouting upwards into an uncaring corporate cloud layer. Manufacturers of assistive technology and software have also been slack in adopting to changes in technology and internet society . After all, the way we interface with the web now is entirely different from 5 years ago, never mind 10. The web is unrecognisable from the web at the turn of the millennium.

Any indication that screen reader manufacturers are starting to move with the times can only be good news.

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