[thelist] AJAX and screen readers

Matt Warden mwarden at gmail.com
Tue Sep 5 14:19:22 CDT 2006


thelist:

I am doing research on ways to use AJAX in a ADA-compliant manner. The
issue I cannot figure out how to solve has to do with page updates.

Page A loads.
Screen reader reads the page.
User interacts with page and this initiates an AJAX request.
AJAX response received.
Page A is updated dynamically via DOM manipulations.

My understanding is that the screen reader may not convey this updated
information to the user. My questions:

(a) Is this true?
(b) Is this always the case, or only under certain conditions (e.g.,
dependent upon where the screen reader last left off)?
(c) Are there ways to nudge the screen reader to recognize new content
(e.g., appending the new information to the end of the document)?
(d) Any other ideas?

The problem is that we do not have the equipment at the client site to
test this out. Anyone with experience in this area... I'd love to hear
your thoughts.

Thanks,

-- 
Matt Warden
Cleveland, OH, USA
http://mattwarden.com


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