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Number of posts in this thread: 5 (In chronological order)

From: Jared Smith
Date: Thu, Sep 23 2004 6:31PM
Subject: Re[2]: Text alternative for flash animation
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> Ive been using the tag to insert alternate text.
> or using the tag because Im testing with javascript to see
> wether flash is installed.

Be very careful with assuming that noembed or noscript are going to
somehow make your embedded media or javascript content accessible.
Noembed and noscript only display when the user does not have embedded
media or scripting enabled - and most (I assume) users who have
disabilities will not fit into this category. If I have embedded media
enabled, otherwise inaccessible content is not somehow made accessible because
you have noembed content. I will never see it, but will only see the
main embedded content, which is inaccessible. In short, these two
elements can never be used as an alternative to inaccessible content.
They are intended for use when the user agent does not support (or has
disabled) the technology at hand.

> With in the element you need to put an image or text in there to
> provide an alternative to the flash.
>
> eg...
>
> <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="/first.swf" width="707"
> height="267" title="Flash Movie Animation">
>
> <img src="/flashalt.gif" width="707" height="267" alt="Flash Move
> Animation Alternative" />
>

Unfortunately, this method fails in most browsers (especially Internet
Explorer). Though the object tag is intended to work this way, it does
not in most cases. And, as above, if my browser DOES support the media
in the parent object tag then the internal media would not (or at
least, should not) be displayed or read by a screen reader. In your
example, if a screen reader simply had the Flash plugin installed, then
the alternative text of the internal image would be ignored. And I
assume that most screen reader users probably DO have Flash. And if they
didn't, then chances are their browser won't interpret the embedded image
correctly anyway.

> WCAG requires a text alternative to

Only if the element is itself not text or cannot be interpreted as
text (i.e., images with alt text, flash with alt text, etc.) I believe
you must only either ensure the content is accessible or provide an
accessible alternative (not necessarily just text). If you want a page
with Flash content to be accessible, you must either make the Flash
object natively accessible (though I would argue that this is rarely
possible) or provide an accessible alternative. The object tag does not
have an 'alt' attribute and using the options above will not work, so
you are left with the decision of either providing the alternative in
context or on another accessible page.

Jared Smith
WebAIM (Web Accessibility In Mind)

From: Stephanie Sullivan
Date: Fri, Sep 24 2004 1:29PM
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Text alternative for flash animation
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On 9/23/04 8:31 PM, "Jared Smith" simply typed the following:

> Unfortunately, this method fails in most browsers (especially Internet
> Explorer). Though the object tag is intended to work this way, it does
> not in most cases. And, as above, if my browser DOES support the media
> in the parent object tag then the internal media would not (or at
> least, should not) be displayed or read by a screen reader. In your
> example, if a screen reader simply had the Flash plugin installed, then
> the alternative text of the internal image would be ignored. And I
> assume that most screen reader users probably DO have Flash. And if they
> didn't, then chances are their browser won't interpret the embedded image
> correctly anyway.

Actually, I would love to see some numbers on this. I have a good friend who
is blind. I asked her to check some Flash for me to see if I had made it
accessible. Her email back said, "I don't have Flash installed." She has no
reason for it really, and since many/most developers don't bother to do
things to make it accessible, it stands to reason that many people with
screen readers do not install it. I understand that Macromedia has made
strides with making the text in it more accessible (which is also good for
search engines), but I don't know how long it will take that information to
A) trickle to the developers and B) trickle to the end users who don't have
it installed.

I wrote a free article a couple months ago about using wmode="opaque" to
keep Flash from grabbing focus (making it more accessible) and for giving
you the ability to place it as you need to with DHTML windows and such...
That solves one bit of the puzzle (though not the one the original poster
was discussing about alternate content).
http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=E5141

An interesting thing I'm experimenting with right now -- related to both
Flash and using "nice" fonts for headings is Mike Davidson's sIFR
replacement technique. So far, I'm extremely impressed. It uses a dynamic
text ability in Flash Pro to create a swf. This tiny swf (about 8-9k)
contains your font characters and is called using JS. It then displays the
text you've put in for your headings in the lovely font. If you don't have
Flash 6 or JS installed, you get a nicely styled CSS header instead. Either
way, search engines and assistive technology can read the text since the
code in your body element simply shows: This is my heading ...
Likely I'm not explaining well since I'm typing quickly... You can read
about it here:
http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2004/08/sifr
(use the links in the side bar to get the most recent beta... Presently it's
at 2.0b2 .. But 3.0 is in the works.

All that was to say, if you're using Flash just to take advantage of the
"look" of it -- nicer font choices and such ... This could be a viable
alternative. ;)

Stephanie Sullivan
Community MX Partner :: http://www.communitymx.com/author.cfm?cid=1008
Team Macromedia for Dreamweaver :: http://tinyurl.com/6huw3
Co-Author .: "Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 Magic" :. New Riders
VioletSky Design :: http://www.violetsky.net

"To me, the computer is just another tool. It's like a pen. You have to have
a pen, and know penmanship, but neither will write the book for you." -- Red
Burns

From: Jared Smith
Date: Fri, Sep 24 2004 1:44PM
Subject: Re[2]: Text alternative for flash animation
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Stephanie wrote:
> Actually, I would love to see some numbers on this. I have a good friend who
> is blind. I asked her to check some Flash for me to see if I had made it
> accessible. Her email back said, "I don't have Flash installed." She has no
> reason for it really, and since many/most developers don't bother to do
> things to make it accessible, it stands to reason that many people with
> screen readers do not install it.

I am only guessing that most screen reader users have Flash installed.
If you have or install a browser, chances are that you have the Flash
player installed. It comes bundled with most browsers and on all
Windows computers by default. I assume that when Macromedia states
that 90 some odd percent of Internet connected computers have Flash
installed, then I think it's reasonable to assume that this probably
isn't too different for screen reader users. And getting rid of Flash
once it is installed is quite a chore for anyone. In short, I've yet
to see a modern screen reader computer that does not have Flash
installed, though I'd love to see more concrete figures if anyone has
them.

Jared Smith
WebAIM (Web Accessibility In Mind)

From: Kerry Webb
Date: Sun, Sep 26 2004 12:34AM
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Text alternative for flash animation
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--- Jared Smith wrote:

> I am only guessing that most screen reader users have Flash
> installed.
> If you have or install a browser, chances are that you have the
> Flash
> player installed. It comes bundled with most browsers and on all
> Windows computers by default. I assume that when Macromedia states
> that 90 some odd percent of Internet connected computers have Flash
> installed, then I think it's reasonable to assume that this
> probably
> isn't too different for screen reader users.

One data point here. Our corporate Common Operating Environment does
not include Flash (and the machines are locked down) and I believe
that this is not uncommon.

So, in the corporate environment at least, the percentage of users
able to display Flash material may be lower than Macromedia would
like to believe.

Kerry


====Kerry Webb
Canberra, Australia

Find local movie times and trailers on Yahoo! Movies.
http://au.movies.yahoo.com

From: razvan@cpea.ro via hermes.insoft.ro
Date: Tue, Sep 28 2004 4:48AM
Subject: Re: Re[2]: Text alternative for flash animation
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Thank you all for responding.

Kindest Regards,
Razvan Pop

blackdorrit wrote:
<blockquote cite=" = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = "
type="cite">
--- Jared Smith <; = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >; wrote:



I am only guessing that most screen reader users have Flash
installed.
If you have or install a browser, chances are that you have the
Flash
player installed. It comes bundled with most browsers and on all
Windows computers by default. I assume that when Macromedia states
that 90 some odd percent of Internet connected computers have Flash
installed, then I think it's reasonable to assume that this
probably
isn't too different for screen reader users.



One data point here. Our corporate Common Operating Environment does
not include Flash (and the machines are locked down) and I believe
that this is not uncommon.

So, in the corporate environment at least, the percentage of users
able to display Flash material may be lower than Macromedia would
like to believe.

Kerry


====Kerry Webb
Canberra, Australia

Find local movie times and trailers on Yahoo! Movies.
http://au.movies.yahoo.com

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--
razvan pop
http://razvan.cpea.ro

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