Getting Flash right the first time - Overview
Macromedia Flash is a graphic and animation program that has gained widespread popularity with Web designers. Many designers build entire Web sites composed in Flash. Unfortunately, Flash has historically posed many accessibility problems.
Why?
- Flash text is inaccessible to many people who use screen readers and Braille displays.
- Flash animations and images often do not include alternative text, which makes them inaccessible to people who cannot see.
- Flash navigation and interactions often require mouse-clicks (unless they are specifically programmed to be keyboard-accessible).
- This makes the file inaccessible to screen reader users and other people who use the keyboard to navigate.
- Flash audio and video is inaccessible to students who cannot hear.
Flash content created with versions 5.x and earlier is not accessible
Flash MX allows text equivalents to be specified for elements of Macromedia Flash movies and provides some control over how screen-reading software handles these objects.
How?
Before you develop a Flash animation, consider whether you really need it. Flash can be a useful tool for creating engaging instructional animations and interactions, but should not be used simply to add eye candy to a Web page
Don't use Flash to build the main navigation for a Web site. This makes your content inaccessible to a portion of your users.
- If you create a Flash animation, provide a link so that users can skip over it or turn it off. Place this link before the Flash object.
- Use the most recent version of Flash (MX or later), and take advantage of the accessibility features.
- Provide text equivalents for all graphics and animations.
- Make your animation keyboard-accessible so that people who cannot use a mouse are able to navigate and close the file.
- If your Flash animation includes audio or video that conveys content, provide synchronized captions.
- Convey the content in at least two formats - Flash and HTML. Make sure any HTML version you create is completely accessible.