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Re: Flash and accessibility

for

From: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
Date: Dec 20, 2008 9:05AM

On 20/12/08 03:24, Dean Hamack wrote:
> I'd like some input from people on the list who have had experience
> navigating all Flash sites with screenreaders.
>
> Providing the developer has used the accessibility settings in Flash, made
> their text selectable, etc. are you generally able to access all of the
> content?

Note that users of Orca (the GNOME screenreader) and VoiceOver (the OS X
screenreader) can't navigate or read Flash content, because the Flash
accessibility featureset is only exposed to Microsoft Active
Accessibility not the GNOME or Apple Accessibility APIs.

In theory, correctly authored Flash content should be accessible with
Windows AT that uses MSAA. In practice, there are plenty of problems:

http://niquimerret.com/?p=94

> I'm currently working on a project which does not lend itself well to HTML
> due to the really complex visual layout.

Regardless of whether you could create the _layout_ with HTML/CSS,
perhaps you could nevertheless provide the same functionality for those
who do not have or cannot use Flash.

--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis