[Gllug] Perl Question - Spam Filter for NMS Form Mail

[Lesley Binks]

On Mon, Feb 09, 2009 at 12:10:44PM +0000, Joel Bernstein wrote:
> 2009/2/9 Lesley Binks <lesleyb at pgcroft.net>:
> > On Sun, Feb 08, 2009 at 08:11:11PM -0000, James Laver wrote:
> >> On Sun, February 8, 2009 1:15 am, Henry Gilbert wrote:
> >> > 2009/2/7 Lesley Binks <lesleyb at pgcroft.net>:
> >> >> You'd get more mileage out of this if you wrote your own contact form
> >> >> and you could then add a recaptcha.net anti-spam offering.
> >> >>
> >> >> You only need two or three text fields, a text area and a submit button
> >> >> plus the recaptcha.net javascript
> >>
> >> The wonderful thing about relying on javascript is that you get people who
> >> actually give a damn about accessibility on your back. You do want to
> >> alienate blind people who have to use screen readers, don't you? This is
> >> aside from the fact that in the UK this is covered under the DDA and
> >> similar laws in other countries. The RNIB recommend WCAG-AA compliance.
> >> Don't let this stop you however, I'm sure blind people everywhere wouldn't
> >> want to put you out and demand you write 8 lines of perl.
> >>
> >
> >
> > From http://www.mcu.org.uk/articles/accessguidelines.html
> >
> > "From the W3C guidelines:
> >
> >    Text can be readily output to speech synthesizers and braille
> >    displays, and can be presented visually (in a variety of sizes) on
> >    computer displays and paper. Synthesized speech is critical for
> >    individuals who are blind and for many people with the reading
> >    difficulties that often accompany cognitive disabilities, learning
> >    disabilities, and deafness. Braille is essential for individuals who
> >    are both deaf and blind, as well as many individuals whose only
> >    sensory disability is blindness. Text displayed visually benefits
> >    users who are deaf as well as the majority of Web users.
> > "
> >
> > While I'm at a loss as to how to provide a braille output of a web page,
> > let alone ensure that it reproduces either correctly or sufficiently well
> > in that media and I will admit that I don't use a speech synthesizer to
> > view the web, the recaptcha offering does have audio output.
> 
> The recaptcha requires JavaScript.
> What will you offer to your screen-reader using blind who don't use
> JavaScript-capable browsers?
> 
> Incidentally Braille will be produced locally by the reader's
> hardware. All you need to do is ensure that your website is navigable
> without requiring JavaScript etc. As for *why* screenreaders typically
> don't render JS, I suspect a large part of the problem is
> communicating asychronous changes to a page to a user who can't see
> that page and is only aware of its text as read/brailled.

There is a move/discipline/method to have Javascript 'fail gracefully' and be
unobtrusive meaning the site should function well without Javascript.  
I think it is in response to the disability discrimination legislation
in the UK and the States.  

I've yet to combine a graceful failure with a captcha but I feel sure it 
must be feasible to design to fail to the state of delivering an audio 
output as the captcha even if this is server-side processing and not 
client-side.  

I haven't used Javascript for site navigation for a very long while. I
think that is something that has fallen out of favour over the last few
years in the same way image maps have - precisely because of accessibility issues.

Regards

L.
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