This is too scary!!! We all know that the sites developed using Ajax tool kits and frameworks are not 100% accessible. Most Ajax applications use Ajax widgets that may or may not support accessibility. For example, a lot of Ajax toolkits don’t have support keyboard navigation (mouse-less operation). So every Ajax based website can be sued according to this ruling. Only exception is if the site provides non-Ajax version. But how many sites provides the non-Ajax versions which can be readable by screen readers? Gmail and Google maps has the non-Ajax versions(yes Google maps has the non-Ajax version which just displays the map as image with out any dragging/zooming features. Turn off Java Script and go to maps.google.com, you will see the non-Ajax version). But Google video, reader and all other Google products doesn’t have non-Ajax version. Similarly all live products from Microsoft except live mail doesn’t have non-Ajax versions. Yahoo has non-Ajax versions for most of their products as they have older versions of the products which they using as non-Ajax versions.

So do you think all these sites can be sued as per the ruling? Oh! boy this is scarier than I can imagine!

More hand-wringing and wailing and gnashing of teeth...

Raise your hand if you didn't see this coming. Oh, yes, Ajax is The Light And The Way. Hey, I know how we can recapture the glory days of 1997: let's find a way to make our websites more dependent on javascript!

Oh, if only there were some way to cleanly separate content from presentation, so that it was feasible to create a website that would render differently for different users with different needs.

Ah, if only.