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RE: Accessible Flash

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From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Aug 22, 2006 10:20AM

> 1. If jaws picks up Flash movies that are set up correctly
> these days, can jaws follow 2 movies embedded on one HTML
> page that communicate with each other? So, say you clicked on
> a link that was a Flash movie and this changed the content of
> another on the same page; this could be done in HTML using
> individual anchor links to the new content as it changes, is
> this possible with 2 Flash movies?

That depends on what you mean when you say "follow". Does JAWS pick up
changes in flash movies? Yes. There is a threshold for the types of
changes that trigger a refresh of the MSAA data tree that JAWS uses as
its off-screen model of the Flash content that will require testing to
determine the user experience. If your user is in forms mode, the
changes will be read by JAWS immediately.

It is worth pointing out that even if JAWS can read the changes, the
user may not be aware that the chages occurred. The same issue exists
with DOM scripted application in HTML with JS, as does the issue about
recognizing changes in the page content/off screen model.

> 2. My second question regards the swfObject / flashObject
> method of embedding movies. When a user doesn't have Flash or
> Javascript enabled, they will get the content in the div
> appropriately named that preceeds the Flash. What happens if
> a user comes in with Flash and Javascript installed and a
> screen reader that supports both? Will they get the content
> in the preceeding DIV as well as the Flash? Or would you need
> have a hidden title/label in the Flash that could direct the
> user to a suitable HTML version?

This depends on the CSS that is used to hide the div. Display:none and
visibility:hidden have different effects on different versions of JAWS.
Some users will read the content in the div no matter what, others
won't. Do you have a working example?

AWK

Andrew Kirkpatrick
Corporate Accessibility Engineering Lead
Adobe Systems