Javascript as an accessibility concern
As many of you know, I and a very tiny army of WebAIM software engineers are currently hard at work developing WAVE5—the fifth version of our ever-popular WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool. As part of this process, we’re planning to move from the “static web page” model used for the first four incarnations of WAVE to a more modern and powerful “interactive web application” model. This change will allow us to provide dozens of advanced features and capabilities that were never possible (or at least never feasible) in previous WAVE versions, as well as a level of responsiveness and interactivity we could never achieve before. Generally, we’re all very excited about it.
One of the consequences of this change in architecture is that, starting with version 5, the WAVE tool will require client-side scripting abilities (i.e., will require Javascript be enabled) in order to function. (Users without Javascript enabled will receive a friendly error message telling them that they must enable Javascript in order to use the tool).
Recently, several people who have seen or heard these plans have raised accessibility objections to our requiring Javascript. [...]