WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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RE: Does visual layout matter for screen reader users?

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From: Sinead Hogan
Date: Nov 7, 2005 12:29PM

Since I was in the unfortunate position of having to retro-fit accessibility in this case, I persevered without defining the tab order with actionscript. The best solution for me in the end was to make duplicates of the objects on screen, set their alpha to 0 (making them invisible), and place them on screen in positions that would read out sensibly using Flash's default read ordering. Then I hid their duplicate visible objects on screen from screen readers. This was pretty flexible and simple. The only disadvantage I found was that in order to alpha out text, I needed to embed a font, which added to the file size.
Well you can see how successful you think this attempt turned out. I just posted a list of different assessment types to the list. The two relevant to this discussion are:
http://www.officecompetition.com/feedback/MatchListsText.html - where I changed the visible layout when a screen reader is detected, and
http://www.officecompetition.com/feedback/MatchListsImages.html - where I made the invisible duplicates and moved them around.

Grateful for any feedback,
Sinead.