...making Linux just a little more fun!
Jim Jackson [jj at franjam.org.uk]
I know this is not strictly "Linux", but I think it's ok...
What's the current thinking about Macromedia Flash and accessibility. I've done some googling and many accessibility guides I've found are fairly old, (> 5years).
Reason I'm asking is that an organisation I help out has had someone volunteer to do them a new website. The initial new homepage is entirely macromedia flash.
In general I'm severely prejudiced against flash, but I want to give them considered balanced advice that meets their requirements re.
- accessibility - ability to do future changes/updates to info on the web pagesany comments/advice welcome
cheers Jim
René Pfeiffer [lynx at luchs.at]
On Mar 13, 2009 at 2059 +0000, Jim Jackson appeared and said:
> > I know this is not strictly "Linux", but I think it's ok...
Well, it runs on GNU/Linux, so why not? 
> [...] > In general I'm severely prejudiced against flash, but I want to give them > considered balanced advice that meets their requirements re. > > - accessibility > > - ability to do future changes/updates to info on the web pages > > any comments/advice welcome
Adobe® Flash, CAPTCHAs and relying on images are generally a major showstopper for accessibility. During one of our annual GNU/Linux events here in Vienna we had talks focussing on accessibility. Most of the talkers (including blind ones) confirmed that.
There are tons of best practices and standards from the W3C available: http://www.w3.org/WAI/guid-tech.html
Most designers follow WAI standards (which can be quite hard). You could try some of the tools to test against accessibility compliance (http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/complete), it might give you some arguments.
Best,
René.
Deividson Okopnik [deivid.okop at gmail.com]
Plus google still cant read flash (they were developing a tool to be able to search for content inside a flash file, but i dont think its running yet) - no google is a really bad thing nowadays.
Ben Okopnik [ben at linuxgazette.net]
On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 11:39:16PM -0300, Deividson Okopnik wrote:
> Plus google still cant read flash (they where developing a tool to be > able to search for content inside a flash file, but i dont think its > running yet) - no google is a really bad thing nowadays.
[[[Elided content]]] Google can certainly read at least some types of Flash. Try 'filetype:swf hello' as a search term, and you'll get lots of hits, with a tag that says "File Format: Shockwave Flash" right at the top.
-- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET *