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RE: Flash and Checkpoint 1.3

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From: John Foliot - bytown internet
Date: Aug 15, 2002 4:59AM

MessageSteve,
I'm still trying to get my head around WCAG Priority 1 Checkpoint 1.3:
"1.3. Until user agents can automatically read aloud the text equivalent
of a visual track provide an auditory description of the important
information of the visual track of a multimedia presentation."

Am I correct in saying that there is not one single site out there, which
has a Flash movie on it without an accompanying auditory description of the
movie, that is compliant with W3C level-A?

If you subscribe to strict adherence of all WCAG checkpoints (Bobby Fans!),
then, yes, you are essentially correct.

The spirit of the checkpoint (by my interpretation) is that when presenting
a multi-media presentation that the essential information is conveyed for/to
all users. Thus an audio narration requires a text transcript for those who
cannot access the audio content, and a visual presentation must be
"story-boarded" for those who cannot access the visual presentation. Like a
storyboard, not every single motion or action need be documented, but the
key, essential actions must be delivered to the end user ("... description
of the important information..."). The checkpoint states that this
"storyboard" treatment must (should?) be made available as an audio track.
Taking it to the MAX, the description should probably be presented in both
audio and text formats; my personal concern is that it may in fact reach a
point where the content developer is delivering too much information
simultaneously, causing "brain-overload" at the user end. I suppose the
ultimate answer is to provide the media in multiple formats/configurations,
allowing the end user to choose the delivery options which best suits their
particular needs. I further suppose that something of this nature could be
developed using Flash, but it would probably involve a fair bit of
development work.

The National Center for Accessible Media (Media Access Group of WGBH /
Public Televison) has a showcase page with various streaming media examples,
and may be found at:
http://ncam.wgbh.org/richmedia/showcase.html

<opinion>
Many content developers are faced with the daunting task of using the often
vaguely worded concepts outlined in the WCAG guidelines as Standards, even
though they were never written in the language of Standards. The spirit of
this checkpoint is a good one, but the practicality of it poses serious
developmental considerations. Using SMIL (a W3C approved technology -
guideline Priority 2 - 11.1) allows the simultaneous inclusion of text and
audio/video (a.k.a. captioning) but the inclusion of a second (optional)
audio track which runs concurrent with the main presentation is problematic
at best. *Most* users requiring descriptions of visual files (gifs, jpegs,
pngs, streaming video, flash animations, etc.) are probably using a "user
agent" which *IS* reading out loud text (JAWs, IBM HPR, etc.), so providing
a text file which storyboards the actions (or including the action
information as part of the overall script file) would probably suffice, but
the guideline does not address this possibility.
</opinion>

My initial idea of providing an alternative text-only description is
apparently not sufficient. What's a developer to do? Remove the flash movie
or find the nearest sound recording studio?

Mic test... testing one, two, three, check.

Good Luck

JF

Thanks
Steve

Steve Vosloo