I regularly encounter the argument that a particular feature is not accessible because it doesn’t work in a text browser such as Lynx.
Most recently this claim was in reference to the HTML canvas element. Funnily enough if the canvas element is provided with a HTML based sub DOM it works fine. Which is part of the reason why myself and others have been working for years to get robust accessibility support implemented for the canvas element. Sorry, to be clear, supporting Lynx is not the reason: Allowing, supporting and encouraging authors to provide a HTML based sub-DOM for content that is inaccessible when solely painted on a canvas and interaction that is inaccessible when solely implemented on the painted canvas using JavaScript, is the reason.
But I digress. I think using the text browser argument is bogus. Text browsers have limited functionality and support a small subset of the semantics and features of HTML. While we as developers and advocates should be mindful of such software, we cannot be held to not using features of HTML because they don’t work in Lynx.
What do you think?
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