WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: Technical explanation on how Flash interupts screen readers

for

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Nov 15, 2010 7:42AM

Birkir,

There are a few options, but for the banner ads the mbl.is site should tell the ad-providers to take a couple of steps to make the ads accessible. Since the banner ads that I see on the site are often just a link to the advertisement site, the structure of the Flash ad could be simplified to be an invisible button that covers the entire Flash content area, and that button has a name which is descriptive of the advertisement (e.g. "Advertisement: Bank of Iceland offers 4% 30-year mortgages with no points. Click to view details"). Then, the dynamic content that is seen (and that is likely to cause any issues you are experiencing due to refreshing content) can be hidden from assistive technologies by setting the AccessibilityProperties.silent property to true for a movie clip that contains all of the other content in the ad.

The RNIB used to have guidelines for accessible banner ads but I don't see it on their site now. I'll made up a quick example...

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: Monday, November 15, 2010 9:08 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Technical explanation on how Flash interupts screen readers

I do mean the virtual PC cursor, sorry for that confusion.
If you have technical resources for me on how authors can hide the
motion from a screen reader user, that would be ever so helpful.
I know that Flash, by itself, does not necessarily constitute
accessibility issues.
However I need to get down to a somewhat more technical level of when
it does so and how that can be corrected, ideally without affecting
the intended visual appearance.
I realize I may have to get quite technical to get there, but any
pointers would be helpful.
Thanks
-Birkir


On 11/15/10, Andrew Kirkpatrick < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> 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
>