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RE: Does visual layout matter for screen reader users?

for

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Oct 25, 2005 4:40PM

Regarding your comment on keyboard users; The default tab order
is turning out to be different from the default read order. The tab
order when a screen reader is not active will remain in the main content
swf, before moving up to the host swf. When a screen reader is active
all elements are read out according to their screen layout regardless of
which swf they're in. So for keyboard use - though not ideal - the
default tab order works well enough.

The reason the screen reader tab order is different is because you
haven't set the tabindex for all objects.

In player 8 there is a change that makes it possible to set the tab
order for a subset of the tabbable objects, so you could just set a tab
order for the main content swf and let the host swf fall into place.


Still hoping my quick fix will do... ?

I have reservations about it. Someone using a screen reader and
magnifier together will notice the difference.

AWK

Andrew Kirkpatrick
Principal Accessibility Engineer, Macromedia
<EMAIL REMOVED>