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RE: Accessible Flash content feedback request

for

From: Sinead Hogan
Date: Nov 7, 2005 3:00PM

The decision to use Flash for this project was based mostly on the requirement for production of a second type of assessment that's part of the same project; performance-based simulations. For building simulations of desktop software Flash I believe provides for the richest, most interactive simulations for the development effort and time invested. It is cross browser and platform compatible. Penetration of the Flash player is in the high nineties. Although I'm not a DHTML or AJAX expert, I understand that ensuring accessibility with these is not a piece of cake either. I was actually pretty surprised to find, once I started into it that the accessibility tools and default accessibility settings in Flash, make developing for keyboard & screen reader access not that difficult after all. My main obstacles were firstly getting my head around the issues (such as figuring out how to use a screen reader!), and that I was retro-fitting accessibility in this case. It would have been far more straightforward if the initial development of the assessment rendering application had been built with accessibility in mind.
Have I left anything out? What do you think I could/should have used? Why?

Sinead.