WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

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RE: Accessible Flash

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From: Schuffman, Jan (General Services - ADA)
Date: Feb 13, 2006 9:30AM

(Long-time list serv lurker here, seldom poster) My $.02 - I agree with
Leonie. Yes, it's possible to build accessible Flash and yes, the more
modern versions of the industry-standard screen readers can then render
it, but those screen readers can be phenomenally expensive, and many
users' financial situations preclude even upgrading. JAWS,
industry-standard in screen readers, costs as much as $600 just for an
upgrade and $900-1100 for a full install, so many people will use their
legacy versions until they are completely non-functional.



The time will come when most of the visitors who use screen readers will
have software that plays nice with Flash. Till then, though, my party
line continues to be to avoid Flash or, if it must be used, to make sure
a visitor has a chance to opt out of it for an accessible page before
the Flash begins.



Note that this is different from having Flash auto-start if a player is
detected on a computer. A couple who are friends of mine now have two
computers but before they did, it was rough. "He" is 100% blind and uses
JAWS. "She" is not, and enjoys Flash. Whenever he was online and
encountered Flash with an auto-detect and auto-start, he was stuck,
since she had loaded a Flash player on their shared computer. Much
better to ask the user which he/she prefers - the Flash or non-Flash
version of a page.