Re: Judging Web Site Accessibility

Well, I would judge it the way I do other judging - get a copy of WCAG 
and see how many things it meets (I don't yet know of a tool that does 
testing, but there are certainly some criteria that should be 
automatically testable). Things like being adequately illustrated or 
using clear text are obvious things to check flash for - and clear 
consistent navigation...

Certainly flash is considered almost indispensable by many people 
working with intellectual disabilities - Jonathan Chetwynd on this list 
has worked hard to try and use technologies more familiar to us to do 
the same things, and ensure accessibilty not just to the target 
audience but anyone else as well. It is, of course, difficult, and in 
the end the target audience is the one that usually gets considered 
more important.

There is a company in Australia that uses flash to produce sites - 
including an authoring interface, keyboard controls, and many other 
accessibility features. They provide a backup text-based version which 
is autogenerated. http://www.composmentis.com

cheers

Chaals

On Friday, Jun 27, 2003, at 20:37 Europe/Zurich, Craig Hadley wrote:

> So how would one "judge the accessibility" of an all Flash site as the 
> usual
> techniques that one (or at least I) would use are not applicable (Lynx,
> source code, etc.)? Is there an automated Flash "accessibility" 
> checker? Has
> Flash evolved enough to be even asking these question in regards to 
> "Judging
> Web Site Accessibility"? And might the usability benefits to the 
> targeted
> users (people with developmental disabilities) be important enough to
> consider Flash for ease of use?
--
Charles McCathieNevile                          Fundación Sidar
charles@sidar.org                                http://www.sidar.org

Received on Sunday, 29 June 2003 01:30:46 UTC