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Re: Technical explanation on how Flash interupts screen readers

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From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Nov 15, 2010 6:57AM

Birkir,
I believe that the issue with that site is how the Flash content is created, not necessarily that it is in Flash. The authors could easily hide the motion from JAWS and other screen readers, but haven't. I'm not sure why JAWS is jumping all over the page for you though. You mention the JAWS Cursor - do you mean the JAWS cursor or the Virtual PC Cursor?

Thanks,
AWK

Andrew Kirkpatrick
Group Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems

<EMAIL REMOVED>
http://twitter.com/awkawk
http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility


-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED> [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Birkir Rúnar Gunnarsson
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2010 10:06 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] Technical explanation on how Flash interupts screen readers

Hello everyone

I need to convince a public media web site in my native country to
stop, or reduce, their usage of Flash, since the Flash movies on their
web site make it nearly impossible for me to read it by now, the Jaws
scursor jumps all over the page and I cannot click on the links I plan
to click on.
To clarify, the web site is www.mbl.is (it is all in Icelandic).
Is there a good explanation somehwere on what type of Flash interups
screen reading and how that happens?
I believe the Flash objects send out events that the screen reader
interpetes as page refreshes and the cursor tries to jump to that
area, but I may not be understanding this process correctly.
If anyone can point me to a resource on this that would be very helpful.
Thank you
-Birkir