Flash Accessibility
Flash CS3 / ActionScript 3 Accessibility
Flash 8: Accessibility
Some ways to make Flash accessible
Assign Text Equivalents
By default, all text equivalents to elements in Flash movie can be read by screen reader.
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Use Accessibility panel
- Click Window>other panels>Accessiblity or ALT+F2 to open the Accessiblity panel
- Check the check boxes in the panel.
- Make Movie Accessible
- Make child objects accessible will read text in child elements such as movie clips -- it may be better to deselect this one, based on how much the movie content changes
- Auto label will read text or near buttons. If button does not have text on it, you should provide a text equivalent. Auto label is not very reliable so it is best to leave it deselected
- Select the FLA document on the stage
- type in the Name of the movie -- like alt text for object
- Type in a description of the movie -- only required if additional information needed
- Both the Name and description are read by the screen reader
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Elements that can be made accessible in Flash 8 movies
- text, which does not require additional accessiblity information since the text will be read
- instances of buttons
- instances of movie clips
- flash document
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How do screen readers handle Animation?
- When the movie loads the screen reader reads the text equivalents for the original state of the movie
- Good idea to NOT autoplay the movie, so the screen reader can read the text equivalents before it starts to play.
- When the movie content changes, the Flash Player 8 sends a signal to the screen reader, which again reads the avilable text.
- Best solution may be to describe movie in the text equivalent for the entire movie and deselect the Make Child Objects Accessible checkbox available in the Accessibility description of the movie.
- Then the reader will only describe the movie and not describe every state change in the movie.
- If you animate text deselect the Make Child Objects Accessible checkbox because the screen reader will keep going to the top of the page and starting to read the content over again.
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Tab indexes for elements on stage or in movie clips
- The tab index sets the reading order for instances of elements on the movie stage.
- If you use movie clips each instance of an element in the movie clip should have a unique tab index number different from elements on the stage or in other movie clips.
- In order for this to work,
- all text items must be defined as input or dynamic text and
- you must specify a tab order for every button, movie clip, and text object on the stage that has been set to be accessible in the Accessibility panel.
- If you miss even one, then screen readers will disregard your tabIndex altogether.
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Ensure Keyboard Access
- If you require the user to click the mouse to accomplish something, then individuals with limited mobility who cannot click the mouse are shut out.
- normally the ActionScript to open a web page from releasing a button would be:
on (release) {
getURL("http://www.csupomona.edu");
}
- instead create an actions layer in the movie and insert this actionscript in the first keyframe of the movie timeline. In this Actionscript skip_btn is the instance name of the button.
_root.skip_btn.onRelease = function() {
getURL("http://www.csupomona.edu");
}
Keyboard Shortcuts do not currently work in screenreaders
Provide Captions
import audio content already captioned in some other program
This method is hard to synchronize with Flashmovie action.
Place text directly on the stage
Method that is most precise in synchronizing audio content with captions, but laborious to do
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Stream XML caption data via third party software (HI Caption SE or MAGpie)
Control Audio Playback
Audio that plays automatically when the movie loads conflicts with the screen reader.
Provide keyboard actions to start, stop and pause sound
Components
If you use interactive Flash components, you need to create actionscript to make them accessible.
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Accessibility of Flash components
If you use a Simple Button component you need to enable the accessibility features of these components, with the enableAccessibility(); command. with the following actionscript:
import mx.accessibility.ButtonAccImpl;
ButtonAccImpl.enableAccessibility();
Examples of Accessible Flash Websites
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