Re: Flash News Flash: It's Accessible

and almost if not as bad, people are out there thinking that it is no
longer necessary to provide a screen reader for the pc with xp and 2k
talks.

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Poehlman" <poehlman1@comcast.net>
To: "Joe Clark" <joeclark@joeclark.org>; "WAI-IG" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 8:34 AM
Subject: Re: Flash News Flash: It's Accessible


Joe and all, the prevailing perception is becoming that flash has the
nod now because it can be used with window eyes.  We are being told that
if we can't access flash that at the least, we have the rong screen
reader.  This is quite serious as is also the issue with pdf.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Clark" <joeclark@joeclark.org>
To: "WAI-IG" <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 24, 2002 6:18 AM
Subject: Flash News Flash: It's Accessible


>1. Users must have the latest version of the Flash Player installed.

Oh, so what. Time marches on. And it's free.

>2. Users must use a screen reader that supports Microsoft Active
>Accessibility (MSAA) (Do most versions of JAWS and other popular
>readers currently IN USE support MSAA?)

No real choice about that. The access infrastructure on other
platforms is too skimpy.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1189>

>3. Navigating between Flash and non-Flash content, using the
>keyboard only, is virtually impossible.

And they may not be able to fix that.

>4. Elaborate Flash movies may present information/content in
>multiple places, simultaneously. Screen Reading software can only
>describe information/content in one place at any given time.

Nature of the beast.

>5. Developers need to understand how to use the new accessibility
features
>of Flash properly, and then they must take the time to do so.

Nature of the beast.

>Given the above, I think it is premature to conclude that all
>accessibilityissues with Flash have been eliminated with the latest
>release of Flash MX.

Yeah, but nobody went *that* far.

I have a piece coming out at AListApart.com this Friday on Flash access.
--

     Joe Clark | joeclark@joeclark.org
     Accessibility <http://joeclark.org/access/>
     Weblogs and articles <http://joeclark.org/weblogs/>
     <http://joeclark.org/writing/> | <http://fawny.org/>

Received on Wednesday, 24 April 2002 08:38:48 UTC