Flash
Flash is Macromedia's vector-based, web multimedia product that that creates self contained interactive movies. Flash consists of 3 different parts
- The authoring tool which has the ability to integrate text, video, audio, graphics and other programmatic logic to craft a movie.
- Flash movie which is embedded in the webpage
- Flash player, browser plug-in used to play a Flash movie.
Prior to Flash Player 6 and Flash MX 2004, interaction with a Flash movie was limited to mouse related activities and the content not accessible to assistive technology like screen readers. The new Flash Players now support Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) API which makes them more accessible to screen readers.
By default using Flash Player 6, all text content is exposed to the screen reader. However, to make the content more meaningful, the Flash presentation must be crafted to exploit the accessibility capabilities of the Flash Player.
The Flash MX 2004 has added a feature called the Accessibility Panel that allows the developer to add text equivalents to various graphic elements within the movie. Make Movie Accessible allows the Flash Player to pass the accessibility information on the entire document to a screen reader.
Flash movie basically uses three types of elements; graphic symbols for static content and simple animation, clip symbols for interactive and complex animations and buttons for navigation. Graphic symbols do not support text-equivalents so animations must be done using clip symbols.
Make Movie Accessible Panel
By default, the Make Movie Accessible and Make Child Object Accessible are selected so that the textual information will be passed to the screen reader. Deselect these items if a symbol or child object within the symbol does not provide any useful information and you want to hide the object from screen readers.
Auto Label associates text next to an object, such as an input text field, as a label or title for that element.
Name is used to enter a brief description (alt value). This must be used for all buttons
Description is used to enter a longer description. Name will be read before the description.
Shortcut key alerts the user of any shortcut key associated with an action. ActionScripts are used to associate the shortcut key with button.
If the Flash movie contains audio, provide an option to turn off audio and provide captions for users with hearing impairments.
FlashPaper 2
FlashPaper converts Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint and HTML documents into Flash files which open directly within the browser window. When the source document is authored using built-in styles, these documents are accessible by default.