About accessibility guidelines
Screen readers are complex, and you can easily encounter
unexpected results in FLA files developed for use with screen readers,
which is software that visually impaired users run to read websites
aloud. Text is read aloud using specially designed software. A screen
reader can only interpret textual content. However, any descriptions
that you provide for the overall SWF file, movie clips, images,
or other graphical content are also read aloud. Write descriptions
for the important images and animations so that the screen reader
can also interpret these assets in your SWF file. This is the SWF
file equivalent to alt text in an HTML web page.
Note: Flash applications
must be viewed in Internet Explorer on Windows, because Microsoft
Active Accessibility (MSAA) support is limited to this browser.
Flash Player uses Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) to expose Flash content to screen readers. MSAA is a Windows-based technology that provides a standardized platform for information exchange between assistive technologies, such as screen readers, and other applications. Events (such as a change in the application) and objects are visible to screen readers by using MSAA.
Note: Flash Player 7 (and later) does not work with all screen-reader
technologies. The third-party software provider must handle the
information that MSAA provides.
