As readers may know, I graduated with my Masters in Computer Science this Spring. My research topic for my final Capstone project was on RIA (Rich Internet Application) Accessibility. When I first started digging deep into the subject, I posted about it frequently, and it has always been my intention to share my findings.
As it turns out, however, I can’t do this in the means I’d anticipated. Ultimately I found the topic was simply not amenable to “a research paper”. When I started diagramming out all the different permutations of the material I wanted to present, I really could find no linear order. So in true web2.0 fashion, I received permission not to present a paper, but a wiki. In this way I could cross-reference related topics without enforcing a specific order.
For example:
- rationale for accessibility: regulatory compliance or usability
- nature of RIA: DOM-based or Plugin
- Suites of Browser/OS/Assistive technology
I was also fortunate enough to engage directly with leaders in the web/ria accessibility field, and I will admit I was less than comfortable publishing their first-hand interviews and emails on the web. While they knew I was doing this research for a school paper, I wasn’t sure about reproducing them online.
That being said, I am obviously still interested in sharing what I learned, and will be doing so via a series of short posts. Hopefully that will make the information more palatable!
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Web accessibility is one area in which we are all pretty ignorant. I know that Flex is supposed to have excellent support for web accessiblity but I’ve never been sure about Ajax – I’ve assumed Ajax simply doesn’t support it.
Anyway, I’ll be interested in following your posts on this subject.
Richard
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Actually, it seems that AJAX (what I call DOM-based RIA) is way more advanced in terms of being made accessible. It’s easier for a screen reader to respond to changes in the DOM than have to worry about the additional level of complexity that a plug-in adds.
I’ll be bleeding them out bit by bit, so check back!
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Talking about research, I was given a link to a diploma thesis called A Convergence of User Interface Paradigms of Web and Desktop Exemplified by JavaFX. I’m not much into JavaFX but aside from that, there’s some noteworthy information in there. Well, that is, if you take some time to read ‘cos it’s waaaaaay longer than any of my blog posts so far. Perhaps it’ll be of some interest to you even if it’s not directly focused on accessibility.
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