Re: Opinions please - flash site, flash navigation - but accessible alternative

I'd like to suggest that instead of html the alternative site should be
non flash this leaves room for goodies if you want to put them in there
that you don't have to go to great lengths to explain and allows for
even more compliant implementation.  I am sad though that the only
reason for building a complient site is to get around non compliance.
In other words, I'd be proud that my site was compliant so would want to
feature it as the main site.  Even the other way round, if you have an
entry point that allows you to take a left turn or a right turn, Why
bother emphasizing one over the other.  High bandwidth and low bandwidth
mixtures are done all the time and in increasing numbers.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andrew Kirkpatrick" <andrew_kirkpatrick@wgbh.org>
To: <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Monday, January 21, 2002 1:23 PM
Subject: Re: Opinions please - flash site, flash navigation - but
accessible alternative


On 1/21/02 11:47 AM,  Jim Byrne (j.byrne@gcal.ac.uk) wrote:

>
> Users will enter a compliant page and then choose between HTML and
Flash. if
> they choose HTML they get a compliant site and if they choose Flash
they
> don't. The Flash site is considered to be 'the main site' - and will
not be
> compliant with W3c Accessibility Guidelines.
If this is the chosen route, you need to make sure that the developers
hit
as many of the WCAG guidelines as possible.  Just because the site is
made
with Flash doesn't mean that the web content guidelines should be
abandoned.

Depending on what the site looks like and does, you may be able to have
a
Flash navigation and other flash features in an html site.  There are
ways
of adding html-based alternatives to flash that will allow the site to
be
accessible (e.g. adding a layer beneath the flash navigation that
contains
html links).

If you are planning on including audio or video, these can be captioned
and
described both in the Flash and in the html versions.

You may have heard that the next version of Flash will add authoring
support
for creating accessible content, and the next player will include
support
for assistive technologies that support MSAA.  Perhaps you can get the
developers to fix the Flash side of the site after the release of the
next
version of Flash?

A great advantage of your site being in HTML is that you can fix small
problems without going back to the developer.  Unless you get the FLA
(the
authoring file type) as well as the SWF (the output file type) as
deliverables you could be stuck going back to the developers for every
little fix.

Andrew

--
Andrew Kirkpatrick, Technical Project Coordinator
CPB/WGBH National Center for Accessible Media
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Boston, MA  02134
E-mail: andrew_kirkpatrick@wgbh.org
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Received on Monday, 21 January 2002 14:33:42 UTC