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Other: Flash and Screen Readers

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    • CommentAuthorandy_woz
    • CommentTimeDec 7th 2006 edited
     
    Now I don't want to start a whole discourse on the merits or evils of Flash and accessibility. However, I have been checking out Flash content with 'Voice Over' in Mac OS X Tiger and whenever it comes across flash content it just says "Scroll Area". Is there a way to get it to say something more descriptive, like "Animated content that does not affect site navigation". Or something like that?

    Also I'd be interested to hear from others with experience how Voice Over compares to screen readers for Windows. I understand there is little in the way of offerings for free screen readers on the Mac OS.

    Andy
    • CommentAuthornickobec
    • CommentTimeDec 7th 2006
     
    accessible flash ie screenreader working with flash requires:

    1. Windows 98, 2000 or XP;

    2. Internet Explorer 5 or better;

    3. A recent version of one of five screen reader soft packages,

    4. Flash plugin version 6 or better;


    source Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance and the chapter was written by an Adobe employee.
    • CommentAuthorandy_woz
    • CommentTimeDec 7th 2006
     
    Thanks nickobec, looks like a fine book. Your answer seems very Windows orientated. I've not had a whole heap of experience with Windows screen readers. Are there any free windows screen reading apps? The Big ones, JAWS, HAL all seem crazy expensive.

    Actually is there a definitive list of screen readers for both OS's?
    Anyone?
    • CommentAuthornickobec
    • CommentTimeDec 7th 2006
     
    That is because the Adobe approach to accessibility is windows centric. I found that reading the Adobe product (flash & PDF) chapters in Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance.

    For example, Flash only talks to Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) through IE. The Adobe view is that visually impaired people will only use one of five screen readers on a Windows box using IE.

    I understand that there is a demo version of JAWS available which runs for 20 minutes before you need to restart your OS, great for Parallels or VPC users.

    The Adobe definitive list of screen readers (ie ones that work with flash/PDFS) are:
    • GW Micro Window Eyes 4.2 or later

    • Freedom Scientific JAWS 4.5, 6.1 or later

    • IBM Home Page Reader 3.04

    • Dolphin HAL 6.50

    • KDS PC Talker (Japan)
    • CommentAuthorandy_woz
    • CommentTimeDec 8th 2006
     
    Thanks again for your input. So as far as Mac, or for that matter any other OS is concerned, there's little if anything a person can do to get the actual Flash movie itself to alert a screen reader to it's presence , apart perhaps from building a big hot area that trigers an audio clip inside the movie itself. The only problem being that whilst the screen reader is saying "Scroll area" your Flash movie is talking as well, like two people telling you different things at the same time.

    So is there anything we can add to a containing element that would help? Can you put a description or longdesc on a div tag? Would longdesc work on anything other than images and would that be a mis-use?
    • CommentAuthornickobec
    • CommentTimeDec 8th 2006
     
    Flashaid a little flash application with the ability to detect whether accessibility features are installed on the user's computer.

    Works with most modern browsers on a Windows or Mac. Can then use it to control a flash movie or trigger javascript.

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