The OpenAjax Alliance made a great announcement yesterday to make Ajax and Web 2.0 applications more accessible for people with disabilities. A great announcement to make web 2.0 experience easy to adopt mainly in government and consumer web sites. The new tooling technology simplifies the way Web applications are tested for compliance with current accessibility standards and guidelines, helping to speed up delivery of new accessible Internet applications according to the press release. It's also a new experience for developers since they will be able to develop and check real-time for accessibility compliance :

Previously, developers had to complete their code and run various reports to determine if their application was compliant with accessibility standards. Using the new tooling technology, applications are tested dynamically, as developers build the code, providing real-time feedback on compliance.

OAA maintains the new tooling technology will help narrow the Web 2.0 digital divide for many segments of the global population by facilitating consistent, industry-wide interpretation of standards such as the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, version 2.0 (WCAG 2.0).

The OpenAjax Alliance is an organization of vendors, open-source initiatives and Web developers dedicated to the successful adoption of open and interoperable Ajax-based Web technologies. Led by IBM, the alliance count today more than 100 members including BEA, Borland, the Dojo Foundation, Eclipse Foundation, Google, IBM, Laszlo Systems, Mozilla Corporation, Novell, Openwave Systems, Oracle, Red Hat, Yahoo, Zend and Zimbra.

Press release available here.