flash and accessability

Hello,

Yes this is great.  I just signed up for this list today and this is what I get!  This is fantastic. 

We work with various non profits and try to get all of the web sites that we make accessible.  We have always wanted to use flash, but then we didn't want to cut off users with accessibility issues.  Now we will look into using flash with our new distance learning projects.

Was this developed by a company owned by Macromedia?  Or is this a private non profit group?

Are you going to be acquired by macromedia?  I hope you take this technology and run with it.  I know Macromedia has been in a do or die stage with accessibility and government contracts.

Has this new tool been tested on a broad base? 

I congratulate you on your hard work.

Thanks,
Christian

Christian Seus 
Technology Specialist
Division of Policy and Program Affairs
Institute for Child Health Policy
5700 SW 34th Street, Suite 323
Gainesville, FL 32608
E-mail: cas@ichp.edu 
Web: <www.ichp.edu>


-----Original Message-----
From: Aaron Smith [mailto:aaron@gwmicro.com] 
Sent: Monday, March 04, 2002 2:43 PM
To: RUST Randal; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: RE: GW Micro Helps Make Macromedia Flash Content Accessible to P eople Who Are Blind

Yes, we have been working with Macromedia very closely, and it's been very 
exciting to be able to test the new Flash components. I can only tell you 
how Window-Eyes works with Flash (since it's the only screen reader that 
supports it to my knowledge). When a page loads with Flash content, 
Window-Eyes will announce that by saying "has Flash." Then the contents are 
read just like text. Macromedia is using MSAA to serve the textual contents 
of the movie/animation, so it is easily accessible to screen readers that 
support MSAA (like Window-Eyes). Interactive movies are easily traversable 
by pressing tab. Forms and the like are equally accessible.

The only drawback is that Flash animations are dynamic (hence the word 
animation), so the MSAA buffer may refresh numerous times in order to sync 
up with any changes that may be taking place. That might cause some 
confusion to new users who aren't experienced with Flash. Window-Eyes has a 
built-in hot key (ALT-SHIFT-M) to disable the auto-loading of Flash 
refreshes to keep this confusion to a minimum.

It is really incredible to see sites like foxsports.com that were once 
completely inaccessible to now be very accessible.

Just to toot our horn a little more, this is a huge stride in terms of 
accessible multi-media, and we're very excited to be on the forefront of 
this technology and to be working closely with Macromedia.


At 02:31 PM 3/4/2002 -0500, RUST Randal wrote:

>This is the first release of
> >>Macromedia Flash Player that communicates with screen
> >readers. People with
> >>visual disabilities can now share in the best experience on the web.
>
>----------
>
>Aaron,
>
>Have you had a chance to see how Flash MX works?  I'm giving a presentation
>on accessibility to our local Macromedia User Group on March 20th, and am
>hoping do demo a little Flash MX for them.
>
>I know I'll be able to get it on the 15th, but any first-hand knowledge you
>could share would be fantastic.
>
>Randal

--
Aaron Smith
GW Micro
Phone: 260/489-3671
Fax: 260/489-2608
WWW: http://www.gwmicro.com
FTP: ftp://ftp.gwmicro.com
Technical Support & Web Development

Received on Monday, 4 March 2002 15:10:13 UTC