Stephen Hawking And Me Flash Mx Accessibility

I recently spent a day learning how to make Flash

accessible. That included downloading a screen reader called Window-Eyes

(from GW Micro, Inc.) and freaking myself out with it for a while. The reader

voice was similar to that of Stephen Hawking

(who has his own accessible site). Yes, the Stephen Hawking Speak

and Spell voice. It was like having him here with me narrating my website.

I chose to code and test Flash accessibility on my freelance

site, because it was new and not a large site (Note: Since I wrote this

article, I've also published accessible flash sites for clients). If you follow

the tips below, making Flash accessible is not a big chore.

During the coding, I discovered, “what they don't tell you.” Macromedia support

and GW Micro were very helpful and confirmed that I had found a “known issue.”

There is no onmouseover vocal state for Flash movie buttons. The Flash player

only provides a tab vocal state. That make sense when you realize that blind

users don't use a mouse, but it's quite disconcerting to test the site, onmouseover

a button, and have Stephen Hawking say, “graphic,” for every button. When you

load the page and tab through it, the text reader properly identifies the Flash

movie, button and the link. If you use the mouse, as I had expected some visually

impaired users might do, it makes no sense at all. Most of my day was spent

trying to figure out what I had coded wrong. I tried every possible accessibility

element/variable combination in Flash. Many developers might just trust Macromedia's

software and have no idea how it works with voice readers. This can be a terrible

mistake and render your site useless to the visually impaired user.

I was successful and my site is Flash accessible. Thinking of how your site

flows is one thing. Doing it with your eyes closed and only using tab,

tab+shift, and enter is completely different. Stephen Hawking and I

navigated through the whole site. Making Flash accessible isn't difficult;

developers should not just trust Flash MX to do it for you. While Flash MX

does produce accessible results from default, there are few tips you need to

know to make it work.

1. Read Joe Clark.
   Clark's
   ALA articles and website are very informative. Macromedia's design guidelines
   are also helpful, but can be confusing. You just don't know a voice reader
   works, until you test it yourself. At this time, Flash is only accessible
   in Player version 6 with Window-Eyes 4.2, using Windows Internet Explorer
   6.
2. Listen to your site.
   It's very helpful to download the demo version of the
   Windows-Eyes screen reader. This is important because, according to Window-Eyes,
   a visually impaired user uses the keyboard 90% of the time. While you can
   tab through all sorts of tasks without their software, the screen reader allows
   you to hear the user experience. You'll be surprised at what you hear. Note
   that the demo will time out after 30 minutes, but you can reboot it an unlimited
   number of times. It is also not modal, meaning you cannot toggle the demo
   on and off. It runs at startup for 30 minutes and that's it. However, you
   do get a good test method without purchasing the software. If you download
   the demo version of Window-Eyes, try Microsoft's Text-To-Speech Robot #1.
   It's the voice of the Cylon Centurions from Battlestar
   Galactica.
3. Tab through your movie.
   Even without using Windows-Eyes, you can tab through
   your Flash movie. Click on the movie, tab through the buttons, and hit enter
   to go to a link. The Flash player will yellow-highlight the buttons as you
   tab through them. Remember mousing through the movie won't work with the Flash
   player and Window-Eyes and this is not how most visually impaired users will
   access your site.
4. Label with care.
   I read through Macromedia's design guidelines, but still
   wasn't sure how it worked. I tried and listened to several label variations.
   What worked was to choose, “Make Movie Object Accessible > Make Child
   Objects Accessible > Autolabel,” in the Accessibility palette. I
   then named the movie, “Flash navigation,” and did not name the
   buttons. By default, Window-Eyes will read the text buttons. As I discovered,
   adding a name and description to the button is not helpful, instead it's very
   annoying, “Button, about,” is clearer then, “Button, About,
   Link to about page, about page is about this site.” On my site, when
   Flash loads, Windows-Eyes alerts the user that Flash is present and reads,
   “Flash navigation, Button: About, Button: news,” and continues
   through the rest of the navigation.
5. Don't stop at Flash.
   Flash MX does make it easier for the developer, but
   don't forget other accessibility considerations. Check Christopher Schmitt's
   ALA article on Accessibility
   and Authoring tools and
   Dive Into Accessibility. Besides the Flash, listen to how the rest of
   your site sounds. Or, at least, try tabbing through it.

As I learned, with the help of Stephen Hawking's voice making Flash

accessible is not difficult. Flash MX makes it easier, as long as you know

how Flash player 6, Window-Eyes, and IE 6 work together.