ARIA - Accessibility Rich Internet Applications

Accessibility is a key to good design. Ease in which we can access, determines the uniqueness and richness of a web-designer. Accessibility has been taken up as another area to explore, re-invent and improvise as a component of Web 2.0

CSS was the beginning for accessibility (apart from (X)HTML). Then came AJAX (Asynchronous Java-Script and XML), AxsAJAX (this seems to be a term introduced by Google - Access-Enabling AJAX). WAI-ARIA is an evolving standard for enhancing accessibility on Web 2.0.

According to W3C, "The Roadmap for Accessible Rich Internet Applications addresses the accessibility of dynamic Web content for people with disabilities" [W3C on WAI-ARIA]. Google is using AxsAJAX and is on its way to improve all its products to make them ARIA compatible.

ARIA has been introduced in Google Reader with a magnification with '=' and '-' keys. Read this article from Readers' blog.

Adding to this effect, an extension has been creator by Charles Chen, a fellow Googler, called FireVox.

A comprehensive article on Web 2.0 and ARIA has been written here.