Creating accessible sites

Making a website accessible involves several different criteria:

Expose the information to screen readers

Make text or images realizable

Some visitors might have difficulty reading small text or seeing small graphics. Allow users to zoom in on these elements, taking advantage of scalable vector graphics in SWF files.

Provide audio narration

Consider providing an audio narration for visitors without a screen reader, or where screen readers might not work, such as with video content.

Provide captions for audio narrations

Some visitors might not be able to hear an audio narration for your site or a video. Consider providing captions for these visitors.

Do not rely on color to communicate information

Many visitors might be color blind. If you rely on color to communicate information (such as: Click the green button to go to page 1, click the red button to go to page 2), provide text or speech equivalents.

Historically, many online presentations (such as videos) provide alternative ways for visually impaired visitors to access the content, for instance, a textual description of a video. However, Flash provides textual information directly to the screen reader. Although this usually means you need to make additional settings or ActionScript in a FLA file, you do not have to create a completely separate version.

Parts of your SWF file can be exposed to screen readers. Text elements (such as text fields, static text, and dynamic text), buttons, movie clips, components, and the entire SWF file can be interpreted by MSA-compliant screen readers.

Section 508 is United States legislation that provides guidelines for making information accessible to people with disabilities. Section 508 specifically addresses the need for websites to be accessible in several ways. Some websites, including all federal websites, must comply with these guidelines. If a SWF file does not communicate all of the information to the screen reader, the SWF file is no longer Section 508-compliant. For more information, see the Section 508 website.

Many nations have specified guidelines to follow to create accessible web sites, or follow guidelines established by other organizations. For more information on accessibility and web standards, see the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative website. These standards and guidelines describe what factors you must address when you create accessible HTML websites, and some of this information applies to Flash.