Last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I was wondering how it was possible to make Ajax-based web services accessible in the sense of making them friendly to screen readers. It may be that this is very straightforward as I haven’t researched the matter yet. But I was thinking about this because of the service I’m developing that could be used by the Methodist Church and I’m sure they will have a particular keenness for accessibility. If you want to talk a look at what I’m doing you can access it here. Basically it’s a search engine written around the Google Maps API using Ajax to get the data from XML and javascript to refresh portions of the browser. So far, the only data it has is for the churches in Watford, so type Watford into the search box and see how it behaves. (The name, incidently, may not stick!)

Anyway, this thought about accessibility got me thinking about accessibility in the church itself. In our own church we’ve been talking about putting in toilets suitable for wheelchair users. We also have a ramp for negotiating the step up into the building. We have not, as yet, spent anytime thinking about how people can get to the second floor, but I’m sure this will have to follow. But this wasn’t what concerned me; what concerned me was our approach to accessibility in worship.

It seems to me that, for most churches, accessibility stops at the installation of a hearing aid loop. I’ve been to one or two churches that are able to offer a few large print hymn books, but after that that’s your lot.

Increasingly churches are turning to multimedia as an aid to worship and the use of digital projectors. These can be useful as worship aids but special attention needs to be paid to accessibility when using them. People who are blind or partially sited will struggle with these projectors and if we rely on them at the expense of giving out hymn/song/prayer sheets then we are excluding some sections of the congregation.

Of course the biggest problem in catering for all comes down to expense. Installing suitable sound systems with appropriate hearing aid loops, having available large print or braille books, installing ramps, lifts and disabled toilets all cost significant amounts of money; but then so do digital projectors, laptops, screens, carry cases and all the necessary cabling required to present multimedia rich content. It makes me wonder whether churches who are keen to embrace the digital age approach it with these issues in mind, and whether they are, by accident or ignorance, excluding members of their congregations or potential members.