Macromedia Flash and Accessibility

Flash can make web sites more interesting especially for people with learning disabilities. However there are some issues to be aware of when creating Flash content.

-allow people who are blind and using screen readers to be able to skip the flash movie and yet get the same content information in accessible text form

-allow people with physical disabilities to use a keyboard instead of a mouse in order to tab through a flash presentation -- access the buttons, etc.

-allow people who are deaf to have captions for audio content -- and a link to a transcript should also be provided

Links:

• Creating Accessible Macromedia Flash Content -- from www.webaim.org
• Making Flash Accessible from the Access E-Learning tutorial of the Georgia Tech Research on Accessible Distance Education (GRADE) project at Georgia Tech
• Macromedia Flash 8 Accessibility -- from adobe.com
• Adobe Flash CS3 accessibility -- from adobe.com
• You can also go to Adobe's Flash Developers Connection and do a search on "accessible Flash"
• Tabbing in a flash file --example with download

Remember: to be accessible any Flash movie needs to be work with the keyboard, not only with the mouse

• Setting Tab Order in Flash MX example from National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM), Media Access Group at WGBH in Boston
• Embedding Flash in HTML -- accessibility issues vs. valid HTML
• Adobe Accessibility Resource Center

Download the Adobe Flash player

• Create Captions for Flash Content -- from National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM), Media Access Group at WGBH in Boston