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Thread: Flash and accessibility
Number of posts in this thread: 11 (In chronological order)
From: Dean Hamack
Date: Fri, Dec 19 2008 8:25PM
Subject: Flash and accessibility
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Hi folks,
I'd like some input from people on the list who have had experience
navigating all Flash sites with screenreaders.
Providing the developer has used the accessibility settings in Flash, made
their text selectable, etc. are you generally able to access all of the
content?
I'm currently working on a project which does not lend itself well to HTML
due to the really complex visual layout.
From: Rimantas Liubertas
Date: Sat, Dec 20 2008 8:30AM
Subject: Re: Flash and accessibility
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> Hi folks,
>
> I'd like some input from people on the list who have had experience
> navigating all Flash sites with screenreaders.
>
> Providing the developer has used the accessibility settings in Flash, made
> their text selectable, etc. are you generally able to access all of the
> content?
In his talk at @media 2006 Robin Christopherson revealed that Flash has
a lot of problems with accessibilty—event in the Flash accessibity tutorials
provided by Adobe. I am not sure if anything has improved since.
I do not consider myself disabled, but generally full-flash sites cause a
bunch of problems for me too, I really dislike them for that.
> I'm currently working on a project which does not lend itself well to HTML
> due to the really complex visual layout.
Sorry, I don't buy it. If you can do it in Flash, you can do it in
HTML (layout wise).
Regards,
Rimantas
--
http://rimantas.com/
From: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
Date: Sat, Dec 20 2008 9:05AM
Subject: Re: Flash and accessibility
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On 20/12/08 03:24, Dean Hamack wrote:
> I'd like some input from people on the list who have had experience
> navigating all Flash sites with screenreaders.
>
> Providing the developer has used the accessibility settings in Flash, made
> their text selectable, etc. are you generally able to access all of the
> content?
Note that users of Orca (the GNOME screenreader) and VoiceOver (the OS X
screenreader) can't navigate or read Flash content, because the Flash
accessibility featureset is only exposed to Microsoft Active
Accessibility not the GNOME or Apple Accessibility APIs.
In theory, correctly authored Flash content should be accessible with
Windows AT that uses MSAA. In practice, there are plenty of problems:
http://niquimerret.com/?p=94
> I'm currently working on a project which does not lend itself well to HTML
> due to the really complex visual layout.
Regardless of whether you could create the _layout_ with HTML/CSS,
perhaps you could nevertheless provide the same functionality for those
who do not have or cannot use Flash.
--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
From: Emma Duke-Williams
Date: Sat, Dec 20 2008 9:55AM
Subject: Re: Flash and accessibility
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2008/12/20 Rimantas Liubertas < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >:
>
> Sorry, I don't buy it. If you can do it in Flash, you can do it in
> HTML (layout wise).
>
>
I'd tend to agree with Rimantas - particularly in connection with a
content driven site - in fact, with most content driven sites, I'm not
sure that Flash can ever really work. From my own point of view, I go
to certain sites to get information - not to be entertained. I think
that there are, however, sites that need to be built in Flash - due to
their purpose. For example, http://www.boohbah.com/zone.html (designed
for under 5s) is Flash driven & I think that for the intended audience
& purpose, it would be difficult to create it any other way. Screen
reader accessibility is probably a moot point, as most 5 year olds
would have to have someone to read to them anyway. This site has no
text so gets over that). There don't seem to be any instructions for
parents - though most children I've seen using it experiment & find
far more things in it than any adult anyway!
So, my view is that Flash, as an alternative to HTML layouts -
probably isn't ideal. If the site isn't content driven, but designed
for entertainment then it's a different matter.
Flash also works well, I think (perhaps as part of) education driven
sites. Clearly, in that case, alternatives may need to be thought
about (while remembering that for many learners, carefully designed
interactions / animations etc., may be much easier to understand than
text) (e.g. http://library.med.utah.edu/kw/pharm/hyper_heart1.html -
which does have text explanations as well)
--
Emma Duke-Williams:
School of Computing/ Faculty eLearning Co-ordinator, University of
Portsmouth, UK.
Blog: http://userweb.port.ac.uk/~duke-wie/blog/
From: Dean Hamack
Date: Sat, Dec 20 2008 11:15AM
Subject: Re: Flash and accessibility
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On 12/20/08 8:52 AM, "Emma Duke-Williams" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:
> Flash also works well, I think (perhaps as part of) education driven
> sites. Clearly, in that case, alternatives may need to be thought
> about (while remembering that for many learners, carefully designed
> interactions / animations etc., may be much easier to understand than
> text) (e.g. http://library.med.utah.edu/kw/pharm/hyper_heart1.html -
> which does have text explanations as well)
That's exactly what it is. I already did the site in HTML two years ago. But
there is so much pixel pushing, layering, animation, etc. that it takes
forever to update and test. They already have Flash video, and are now going
to add Flash games. So at this point, I just recommended they go all Flash.
I had already intended to provide alternative text content for mobile users
and print. I was just trying to figure out whether I should also use that
content for the folks using screenreaders, or just let them navigate the
Flash site. I think I'll go with the former.
Thanks folks.
From: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
Date: Sat, Dec 20 2008 11:20AM
Subject: Re: Flash and accessibility
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On 20/12/08 18:13, Dean Hamack wrote:
> I was just trying to figure out whether I should also use that
> content for the folks using screenreaders, or just let them navigate the
> Flash site. I think I'll go with the former.
I'd suggest using the Flash accessibility feature set and giving
end-users the choice.
--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
From: Peter Weil
Date: Mon, Dec 22 2008 9:30AM
Subject: Re: Flash and accessibility
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What specific technique(s) do people recommend for providing end-users
with the choice of viewing the Flash content or the html/css version?
Can anyone provide any examples?
I've been instructed to use Flash-based navigation menu (created by
someone else) for a particular site. Personally, I would never do a
Flash-based menu like this, but it's a very rare occasion -- a small,
artsy site with a limited, specialized audience, and we've been asked
to do this. But making the navigation menu accessible is obviously
paramount.
Thanks, Peter
On Dec 20, 2008, at 12:19 PM, Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis wrote:
> On 20/12/08 18:13, Dean Hamack wrote:
>> I was just trying to figure out whether I should also use that
>> content for the folks using screenreaders, or just let them
>> navigate the
>> Flash site. I think I'll go with the former.
>
> I'd suggest using the Flash accessibility feature set and giving
> end-users the choice.
>
> --
> Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
>
From: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
Date: Mon, Dec 22 2008 10:05AM
Subject: Re: Flash and accessibility
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On 22/12/08 16:26, Peter Weil wrote:
> What specific technique(s) do people recommend for providing end-users
> with the choice of viewing the Flash content or the html/css version?
1. Do your best to create your Flash content in accordance with WCAG2
principles, including use of Flash accessibility feature set. This
should allow you to make it accessible to _most_ people, including many
people with disabilities, who have Flash enabled.
2. If the Flash results in a problematic experience with AT, consider
using FlashAID to detect use of MSAA and disable the Flash menu (
http://osflash.org/flashaid ) - this only helps with Windows.
3. Use progressive enhancement so that the Flash menu replaces an HTML
menu when Flash is disabled.
Unfortunately, many of the AT-users who might have trouble using a Flash
menu on non-Windows platforms will still have Flash enabled in order to
play videos (e.g. YouTube). I suppose you could add a "Turn off Flash
menus" button at the top of the page, but that's rather clunky. It also
wouldn't help Firefox keyboard users who tab into your menu then get
stuck there (because you can't tab out of Flash objects in Firefox).
For these reason, I tend to favour using DHTML controls with Flash
services - e.g. DHTML video player control buttons with Flash video
output - over sticking Flash controls directly into HTML pages.
It _might_ be you could use other technologies (Canvas? SVG? CSS
transformations/animations? VML?) to achieve the same visual effects for
your menu as with Flash but with better accessibility.
--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
From: Dean Hamack
Date: Mon, Dec 22 2008 11:15AM
Subject: Re: Flash and accessibility
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In your case, I don't think providing users a choice is practical. But you
should never have your navigation solely in Flash, because it hurts your
search engine rankings, and doesn't work on most mobile devices.
Here's what I would do in your situation:
1. Use swfobject.js to detect Flash. If the user doesn't have Flash, give
them the html menu instead
2. Set the wmode parameter of your Flash movie to transparent. Someone
pointed out earlier that if you do that, Screenreaders can't find the Flash
movie. But they will have no problem picking up the HTML menu.
On 12/22/08 8:26 AM, "Peter Weil" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = > wrote:
> What specific technique(s) do people recommend for providing end-users
> with the choice of viewing the Flash content or the html/css version?
> Can anyone provide any examples?
From: Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
Date: Mon, Dec 22 2008 6:30PM
Subject: Re: Flash and accessibility
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On 22/12/08 18:10, Dean Hamack wrote:
> 2. Set the wmode parameter of your Flash movie to transparent. Someone
> pointed out earlier that if you do that, Screenreaders can't find the Flash
> movie. But they will have no problem picking up the HTML menu.
That doesn't follow, unfortunately. If the Flash movie replaces the HTML
menu then there is no HTML menu for them to pick up; there's just an
inaccessible Flash object.
--
Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis
From: Dean Hamack
Date: Mon, Dec 22 2008 7:15PM
Subject: Re: Flash and accessibility
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The HTML menu remains in the source code of the page. I'm working on a site
right now that uses this method. I'll post an example tomorrow.
On 12/22/08 5:27 PM, "Benjamin Hawkes-Lewis" < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
wrote:
> That doesn't follow, unfortunately. If the Flash movie replaces the HTML
> menu then there is no HTML menu for them to pick up; there's just an
> inaccessible Flash object.