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September 27, 2004
Getting Designers to do Flash accessibility
Someone wrote me today to ask, "what should people ask a flash developer to do to make a design more accessible?"
I wrote back.
The approach to accessibility of a Flash application will depend on the nature of the application itself. In this way, Flash mirrors the development of desktop applications more than web applications.
When kicking off a project, here is how I handle accessibility and Flash.
- First, I ask the developer if they have handled accessibility. The answer is invariably some form of 'well, sort of...'. Designers do not like to admit they have never seriously dealt with the issue.
- Second, I ask which screen reader they used. Typically, this results in stone silence.
- Third, I tell them to go get a screen reader. I tend to use Window Eyes 4.5 (with Service Pack 3 installed). If need be, I will point them to JAWS 4.5. At that point, I tell them that if they want the contract with me, they MUST use the screen reader for 30 minutes a day and it can not be on this project. It has to be on web content or email. Designers need to get used to the voice and the specific use case of the screen reader.
- Fourth, I give them a white paper on Flash accessibility (attached) they typically do not mind this. However, a couple of days in, they will start to realize there are some tough questions they do not have answers to. Flash allows designers to build controls that are not clear to the screen reader. Designers need to tell the screen reader user what the control is, how it works and what state the control is currently in.
- Fifth, I require that the developers check the app with a screen reader at least once a day. They should be listening for whether the order of the content makes sense, or changes after they do get it working. They should also be listening to make sure the labels are read for buttons.
- Finally, after all of this, I hand them a set of disability use cases. Blindness is only one use case. As they go gray, I try to calm them down a bit as I talk through issues for people that are low vision, deaf, mobility impaired, cognitively impaired or have color deficits.
Hope that helps.
Posted by Bob Regan at September 27, 2004 11:16 AM
Comments
Getting accustomed to using screen reading software is probably the most important thing you can do if you are developing accessible Flash.
For testing and debugging content in the throws of the development process, I would also recommend using Microsoft's Accessible Explorer with the Narrator program that comes with Win2k and WinXP.
Accessible Explorer is part of Microsoft's Active Accessibility 2.0 SDK Tools (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=3755582a-a707-460a-bf21-1373316e13f0&displaylang=en).
It will allow you to browse the MSAA object hierarchy of a Flash movie playing in IE, and quickly identify places where you've left an object unnamed but accessible, or that the read order is not what you expected, because there's some object on the stage to which you've failed to assign a tab order.
It's like a look under-the-hood of what's being communicated up to the screen reader though MSAA.
Posted by: Michael Jordan at September 28, 2004 09:31 PM
I guess going out and buying a screenreader wouldn't really be on the list of things designers would be doing, they seem to cost a fortune (for a typical designer not specialising in accessibility).
I think you can download a free trial version of WindowEyes. That seems to work pretty well on my system. But it only lasts for 30 minutes.
Can you get the narrator to read the page out? I had trouble doing this.
Posted by: Tim Hill at September 29, 2004 01:01 AM
My wife is visually impaired. She uses Jaws (Job Access with Speech) and Windoweyes. I have been unable to get anything done in Flash to be able to be read by her accessibility software! I also have not found anything of use nhow to fix the problem.
Toggling the accessibility options on and placing descriptions into movie clips, etc. just does not seem to work.
If anyone can yield some light on this problem, I would appreciate knowing what I might try to fix the problem. Thank you!
Posted by: Joseph Levin at October 1, 2004 09:16 AM
Howdy,
Rather than respond here, I thought I would post a list of sites I know are built for accessibility. What version of JAWS is your wife using? JAWS 4.5 works really, really well. However, in an effort to correct a small issue with Flash, Freedom Scientific introduced a number of errors to JAWS 5 and 5.1 that might be affecting your experience.
Let me know how it goes.
Cheers,
Bob
Posted by: Bob Regan at October 1, 2004 10:43 AM
Add the following actionscript, changing only 'Title' to the instance name of what you are trying to make accessibile.
****
_root.Title._accProps = new Object();
_root.Title._accProps.silent = false;
_root.Title._accProps.name = "Blahh";
****
You can add a description (same as name, but longer - descrepencies with the screen readers, dont worry ;)
****
_root.Title._accProps.description = "Blah";
****
To make a movie accessible opposed to every object inside the movie add this.
****
_root.Title._accProps.forcesimple = true;
****
This took me a very long time to figure out and get to work. This site helped a lot. And yes I prefer JAWS, and yes 4.5 is the best so far!
- Matt
P.S Please send me an email if you respond!
Posted by: Matt at December 21, 2004 02:53 AM