Learning JavaScript

Accessibility and JavaScript Best Practices

In an ideal world, everyone who visits your web site would use the same type of operating system and browser, and have JavaScript enabled. Your site would never be accessed via mobile phone or other odd-sized device; blind people wouldn’t need screen readers, and the paralyzed wouldn’t need voice-enabled navigation.

This isn’t an ideal world, but too many JS developers code as if it is. We get so caught up in the wonders of what we can create that we forget that not everyone can share them.

There are many best practices associated with JavaScript, but if there’s one to take away from this book, it’s the following: whatever JavaScript functionality you create, it must not come between your site and your site’s visitors.

What do I mean by “come between your site and your site’s visitors”? Avoid using JavaScript in such a way that those who cannot, or will not, enable JavaScript are prevented from accessing essential site resources using a nonscript-enabled browser. If you create a drop-down menu using JS, you also need to provide navigation for people not using a JS-enabled device. If your visitors are blind, JS must not interfere with audio browsers; if your visitors use a cellphone with a black and white screen, or they are color blind, your page shouldn’t depend on color to provide feedback.

Many developers don’t follow these practices because they assume the practices require extra work, and for the most part, they do. However, the work ...