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RE: Accessible Flash

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From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Feb 13, 2006 11:30AM

> 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,

Freedom Scientific says that you can upgrade from 4.0 to 7.0 for $400,
and if you pay and additional $120 you get the next two major updates
also. If is not free, but many users do get their software from
employers or state agencies (e.g. users in Massachusetts can get JAWS
from the Mass Commission for the Blind).

> I also agree with Jan. Screen reader upgrades (JAWS anyway),
> are very expensive (I am not sure how well HomeReader et al
> support Flash) so don't penalize users (though I know that

HPR 3.04 supports Flash content quite well.

> For this very reason, if I was developing a site and using
> Flash swf's embedded in my pages I would try to make them
> invisible to screen readers, and place any important
> info/content in the main body of the page.

That's fine for superfluous Flash content, but if you are really using
Flash and taking advantage the programmatic environment to create a rich
internet application it may not be so simple. A flash application may
not be easily replicated on a single page, or even several. There are
definitely challenges in making a flash app or a javascript-enabled
application, but these are challenges that we need to think hard about
and not settle for the "provide an accessible fallback" argument.

AWK