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From: David Ashleydale
Date: Jul 3, 2009 5:00PM

Hi,

I'm not a Flash developer so I wanted to ask for an opinion of those of you
that are. I often receive Flash tools and movies from vendors that don't
meet these two basic accessibility requirements: usable without a mouse, and
readable by JAWS. Using the Tab key, the focus just jumps right over the
Flash -- I can't Tab to any of the active elements within the Flash. And
when I listen to them with JAWS, none of the text that I see within the
Flash is read out loud. I usually hear something like, "Flash movie begin.
Flash movie end."

I have seen Flash components made that satisfy both of these requirements.
So my question is -- do Flash developers need to do something "extra" to
Flash components to get them to meet these requirements, or are the vendors
I'm dealing with just not coding their Flash correctly?

With HTML, I'm confident in pointing out mistakes that developers make. Even
if the HTML developer doesn't know that my company cares about
accessibility, coding a data table using TDs instead of THs for the column
headers is simply wrong. Sure, they can make the TD column headers look bold
and centered using styles, but it's technically incorrect. And this is a
case that if they did it correctly, even not knowing anything about
accessiblity, it would end up being more accessible. Also, I wouldn't
consider it to be asking for something "extra" to request that the developer
redo it with THs.

Basically, I want to know if the Flash developers I'm working with are
sweeping dirt under the rugs and calling the house clean, or am I expecting
them to do the windows?

Thanks,
David Ashleydale