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Create text alternatives for Flash content
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Warning: the original version of this document is Creating Text Equivalents for Flash Content . This French translation was done by Ideos under an agreement between WebAIM and Ideos .
Note: See page documents on web accessibility for a list of all translated documents. Other resources on web accessibility are also listed in the digital portal accessible .
Summary
- Page 1: Creating accessible Flash
- You are on Page 2: Create text alternatives for Flash content
- Page 3: Accessibility and keyboard playing order of Flash content
- Page 4: Techniques for the accessibility of Flash and other considerations
Introduction
Text equivalents Must Be Provided in Flash For Every non-text element That Convey important content. This Means That graphics, animations, and video must have textual equivalents That Can Be accessed by Someone Who Can not see Those elements. Also, a textual equivalent (captions and / or transcripts) Must Be Provided for all audio content That Is not conveyed aussi Through the visual elements of the presentation.
Text Equivalents
Captions
Providing captions in Flash offers accessibility to users Who Can not Understand fully hear or audio content. Because of the kind of interactive Flash, captions Can Be Turned On or Off and Can Be programmed to display in Many Ways. If the Flash multimedia IS Primarily audio content, a transcript Should Also Be Provided.
from HiSoftware both enable you to generate captions that can be incorporated into your Flash movie. Media Access Generator - external link (Magpie) from WGBH's National Center for Accessible Multimedia and Hi-Caption SE - external link from HiSoftware Both enable you to generate captions That Can Be Incorporated Into your Flash movie.
The Flash accessibility panel
+ F2 . You Can Provide text equivalents for graphical elements Within Flash using the Flash Accessibility panel, available at Within Flash or by pressing ALT + F2.
Note
All of These examples use Flash MX 2004 Professional. Appearance and Functionality May Be Slightly different versions of Flash in Other.
There are SEVERAL options available on the Accessibility panel.
That the items are visible on the Accessibility panel Vary based on the type of object That Is Currently selected.
If selected (the default), then accessibility features of Flash Will Be Exposed to the screen reader. If not selected, the screen reader That Will Identify a Flash movie Is There, Will not Access Any order of the content Within the movie.
If this option deselected IS, the Currently selected object invisible Will Be Made to the screen reader and the textual equivalent and Any text Immediately Within the current symbol Will not Be accessible to the screen reader. This Can Be Useful if the symbol Does not Convey important content. By default, objects are accessible, so Be sure to select this option if the object contains text or Convey important content.
If You Have Other objects or symbols embedded Within a selected symbol, You Can Make Them hidden by Selecting this option. This is Useful for That symbols are comprised of multiple objects, intended as a Whole Need only one text equivalent. For instance, if a movie clip symbol contains a text character animation Wherein EACH of animating a Word Is Independently, You Would not Want To Be EACH character Individually read by the screen reader. To solve this, Would you add alternative text to the movie clip Itself and deselect the to hide the animating items Within the movie clip.
This option tells Flash to associate buttons with text That Are Within or near the button. If all of your text buttons Have Them Within or adjacent to 'em, then Auto label Automatically associate Them Can and Will read the text as the alternative text for the button. The results are not Always as expected and taken care Should Be When using Auto label.
This Is Where You Would enter alternative text for a Flash object. This is What Will the screen reader read in place of the selected element. You Can enter a brief (one or Two short sentences) name or description of the object.
This is Used for longer descriptions of objects and Flash IS NOT required UNLESS Additional description IS needed Beyond That Allowed Within Name. If Name and Description Both are Provided, the screen reader Will read the Name first, then the description. Functionally, There Is No Difference Between Name and Description.
This allow you to Indicate to the user What the shortcut key is for That Specific Objects. It Does not program the keyboard shortcut, the user alerts Simply order as to What the shortcut key is.
How Flash Text Equivalents Work
By default, text inside of Flash is Exposed to the screen reader-through MSAA.
There Is not anything special you do to Have To make your text accessible to screen readers.
If your Flash movie is Nothing More than static text, then It Will Probably Be accessible to screen readers Without Any Other changes.
Of course, Flash is Rarely Used To display static text.
While text elements do not require modification by the designer / developer, Other elements do.
Designers and developers use the Accessibility panel May in Flash to add a text equivalent or Even to hide elements from assistive technologies. View a text-only example ( 
).
When a screen reader Access has That page contains Flash content, it Indicate so. JAWS reads, "Flash Movie Start" (This is customizable in the JAWS settings) and Window-Eyes reads, "Has Flash". This alerts the user to What is happening if the page Suddenly Begins reading confusing information or if the page Does not Seem To Be Because of the keyboard accessible Flash content. When the Flash movie IS accessed, the screen reader Will read all of the text and text alternatives Within the Flash movie. When It Is Done, It Will Indicate That It Is Done. As long as the text IS Within the Flash movie When The screen reader Access IT, It Will Be Read.
Because of the linear type of screen readers, They Can Only read the content That Is Exposed to 'em at the moment THEY Particular access a place Within your Flash movie. For instance, if You Have a series of randomly display quotes That Every 10 seconds Within your Flash movie, the screen reader Will only read the quote That Is Currently Displayed When That portion of the Flash movie IS accessed. If the quote currency while That IS Being accessed Flash element, then the screen reader alerted That IS Something HAS changed and it begins reading again at the top of the page. The Fact That a screen reader starts at the top of the page if Any text object on the page changes while the screen reader to access HAS It Is What Makes The Vast Majority of Flash content inaccessible to screen readers.
Important
Avoid Exposing text animation or to exchange the screen reader. Any time a year Exposed element exchange Within your Flash movie, the screen reader reading begin May from the top of the page.
View year animating text example (
).
You Can Avoid this problem by animating text Either Avoiding objects in Flash or by hiding 'em from the screen reader as Demonstrated Later in this tutorial.
Any text That Is Within The Flash movie IS read When The Read Access screen the movie. This includes text That Is Within buttons. Beginning with the Flash MX authoring environment, you-can add graphical elements to textual equivalents, as long as the elements are symbols Defined as movie clips or buttons. Text equivalents are not supported on Defined symbols with the "graphic" Behavior. If a graphical item Does not Have Defined alternative text for it, then the screen reader ignorant of it.
View a graphic example (
).
This example Does not Have a text equivalent added, so the screen reader Will ignore it.
Adding Text Equivalents
panel. To add a text equivalent, select an item on the course and enter a short description of the object Into the text box on the panel.
panel. If a description along IS needed, it Can Be Added to the field on the panel.
The screen reader Will now read this text in place of the object. View available year graphic example (
).
Be aware That the Name and Description are totally invisible, except to screen readers.
You do not get any visual indication or tool tip for textual equivalents.
Items That Are Already Within Flash text do not need a text equivalent as the text Itself Will Be Read.
Make sure the text items are That Truly text and form intelligible words.
Graphical shapes and multiple text elements That Are Placed together to form words Visibly Will Not Be Correctly read as text.
In Such Cases, Should Be Placed thesis elements Within a movie clip symbol Assigned Which is the Appropriate alternative text for the group in the Name field.
panel to hide the internal contents of the movie clip symbol from the screen reader. Deselect the option on the panel to hide the internal contents of the movie clip symbol from the screen reader.
Equivalents May Be Added to text items if They Are Defined as dynamic text, the text box in Which Within the dynamic text box Will Be ignored and the equivalent text will be read INSTEAD.
The text equivalent (Name or Description) Does not Have To Be Exactly the Same as the content.
You Can Provide Additional Information or less as desired.
Determining the Same techniques for alt text for HTML image Should Be Used When text in Flash Assigning alternative.
However, Because of dynamic nature of ITS, Sometimes exact equivalent year May Not Be Appropriate.
For instance, if a movie HAS Dozens of words flying around the screen to draw attention, It May Not Be Appropriate to Provide alternative text for all of 'em.
Instead, Either You Might Provide alternative text for one or Two or describe in general What is happening, yet no You May Provide Alternative to the words at all, if you determined That THEY Provide no important content.
As Previously Discussed, if you animate text, the Flash movie Indicate That There Is a change in the movie and the screen reader May begin reading at the top of the page.
However, animating graphics are not a problem for screen reader users Because the text equivalent for the graphic (if provided) Will Be Read.
Animated graphics May Be a problem with photosensitive epilepsy for Someone if the animation causes flickering or blinking. View animated graphic available year (
).
Making buttons accessible Within Flash
There are Three methods for making buttons accessible Within Flash (listed in order of Reliability and ease-of-use):
- Place Within The text symbol button. This text will be read When the button IS accessed.
- fields on the panel. Provide alternative equivalent year in the and / or fields on the panel.
- panel. Place text adjacent to the button and use the feature on the panel.
If Text is inside of a button symbol then the text will be read by a screen reader When the button IS accessed.
If a button symbol Does not Contain Itself text, then a text equivalent Should Be Provided in the Accessibility panel.
By default, the screen reader Will Indicate That It Is a button and read the text Contained Within it or the text equivalent. JAWS reads the text, then reads, "button".
Window-Eyes reads, "button", then reads the text. View Flash buttons with text equivalents (
).
If the button contains text More than one element, then pick Will Flash (Seemingly at random) only one of the text items and read it.
panel. As Previously Indicated, Flash aussi year HAS feature found on the panel. This option appears on the panel When Nothing is selected on the stage. When IS selected, if There Is No equivalent specified for a button and no text Appears Within the button, then Flash Will Attempt to auto-associate That Is Any text on top of or near the button and read it as the equivalent. This works great, as long as the text label for Appropriate IS a button Positioned in a way That covered any Flash Properly That it goes with the right button.
The results of using Auto Label are so random and sporadic, That It Is Usually best to leave it deselected and Always place text inside Either of gold buttons Within the Accessibility panel. If Auto Label IS Used, a compatible screen reader Must Be Used To test if the Appropriate text has-been self-associated with the right buttons Within the movie.
Animating text Within Any of a button's states (up, over, down, or hit) Will not Be read by a screen reader and May because the screen reader to begin reading Continually from the top of the web page. panel and a text equivalent ( and/or ) should be provided instead. If a button contains animating text, Should Be deselected in the panel and a text equivalent and / or Should Be Provided INSTEAD.
Providing Text Equivalents for the Entire Movie
If It Is Appropriate, You Can Easily Provide a text equivalent for your Entire movie, Rather Than Worrying about Trying to get Individual shares of the movie To Be accessible. This Would Be similar to Providing alternative text for year Entire year web page. to hide the internal contents of the movie. Just deselect everything on the Flash stage, select the panel, deselect and to hide the internal contents of the movie. and if needed, a longer . Then deselect and add a brief and if needed, a long
Most Flash advertisements Could Be made more accessible in this Manner, though If They Contain a button, They May interferes with keyboard navigation, as Described in the Keyboard accessibility section. View a movie with text equivalent (
)
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