Gmail Now Made More Accessible

Google released a cross browser version of Gmail that does not have any DHTML and works without support of JavaScripts. This all makes Gmail more accessible across different platforms commonly used by challenged users, which was one of Google’s goals right from the beginning.

The news that Gmail was extended with a new accessible version was released today by Google Blogoscope. The blog reported: “The promised additional cross-browser version of Gmail is here, and you can access it directly at http://gmail.google.com/gmail/h/. It doesn’t have any DHTML, which makes it a lot more accessible, and a real alternative even if you have a modern browser like Firefox. Because now, you can turn off JavaScript, open your own windows, reliably use the back-button, or do anything else your browser allows you to.”

According to Kevin Fox, part of the Gmail team at Google, accessibility issues were considered right from the beginning. In his blog http://fury.com/ in April 2004 he commented:

“Throughout development the Gmail team has followed the Model View Controller (MVC)  principle of design. By the MVC principle, the current front-end DHTML presentation layer is abstracted from the back-end data model. One of the primary reasons for following the MVC principle is to address accessibility issues. It will enable us to offer a basic HTML version of the service that will be much friendlier to browsers without Javascript, or those using JAWS or other screen readers for the visually impaired, not by ‘repairing’ the DHTML UI, but by providing a UI with the same functionality, minus those enhancements that require Javascript and DHTML.”

The Gmail non-DHTML version is not completely finished since there are some inline formatting problems like ‘bold’ and ‘font’ codes, but these are smaller problems compared to the ones that are now fixed in this non-DHTML version and shows that Google is really working to make Gmail more accessible.

Source: Google Blogoscope