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RE: Bridge page wording

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From: Robinson, Norman B - Washington, DC
Date: Jun 23, 2005 10:13AM

Patrick,

Norman previously wrote "flash can be designed to be accessible.
Anything that isn't accessible is a lack of intent (whether due to the
preference of the client or not)..." to which Patrick Lauke responded
"as in "the client has a preference not to buy the very latest version
of Windows Eyes to access the flash?"

There is not always the extreme. There is more than one way to provide
access. That may include designing such that a screen reader isn't
needed. It all depends and I would have to see the intended content to
be able to apply some reasoning. I will say that I would place the
responsibility for having a screen reader on the designer - I don't see
this as any different than testing with alternate browsers, if it is
important to you as a designer and developer of web content.

Norman previously wrote: "...or a failure of the imagination.." to which
Patrick responded "or a failure of budget, or sheer impossibility of
making it accessible (or how would YOU make a flash game a la Pong or
similar accessible to a screenreader user, for instance). In the real
world, flash is still not a universally accessible format, and often
content can't be made accessible for good reason."

Reality is that budget sometimes kills the entire project - not just
accessibility. I'm also aware it is difficult to communicate the need
for accessibility if it costs additional money. That is why
accessibility should be part of the design. I wouldn't expect a client
to debate my insertion of alternate text for images as something
unnecessary or a place where not providing them would allow the saving
of time and money. To a degree, other parts of accessibility can be
viewed in similar fashion. In the example we debate, I think it would be
fair to consider the time to provide a text alternative if it fits
within budget and schedule. If you don't know how, it would be too
expensive for the client to pay for your research. If you know how, then
it could be the extra 5 minutes added to each 20 minutes of FLASH
coding.

I'm not a flash guru coder. Yes, in the real world, flash is not
universally accessible but sadly, neither is some HTML content. I don't
use the negative as an excuse for not trying, for not focusing on how we
can solve the problems. I have seen flash used where the controls were
accessible and read either by my screen reader or by sound events that
described what action the control (next, forward, reload) performed.

I didn't have an example of the content being referenced with the bridge
page. Certainly if it is all visual, then it may not be any benefit to a
non-sighted user. It was mentioned all the content was also generated
into HTML at the same time as the FLASH and I would expect that there is
more items that could be accessible, simply on the commonality of that
alone.

Although your challenge to me was to make a game of pong accessible,
which is intently visual, spatial, and doesn't lend itself to textual
information easily, I think I could do it! In this instance I think
FLASH would make it accessible where no other program could do so! I
might use the keyboard arrow keys, center using space bar, provide audio
feedback on the location of the ball relative to the paddle, with
frequency of the audio determining how close you are to the ball. What
about bouncing off the edges? I'd provide another audio keyed to the
motion of top of the screen to the bottom of the screen. I would also
use volume to indicate how far or near the ball was to the paddle.
Actually, that would be really cool to be able to play pong with my
blind friends!

Is that perfect? Maybe not. I just want to encourage the attempt at
providing accessibility even when the tools themselves are inherently
visual. I sincerely didn't intent to be anything but constructive in my
comments.

Regards,

Norman Robinson