MACROMEDIA FLASH 8-USING FLASH Use Manual page 514

Because different screen reader applications use varying methods to translate information into
speech, the presentation of your content will vary according to each user. As you design
accessible applications, remember that you have no control over how any screen reader will
behave. You have control over only the content, which you can mark up in your Flash
applications to expose the text and ensure screen reader users can activate the controls. This
means that you can decide which objects in the Flash application are exposed to screen
readers, provide descriptions for them, and decide the order in which they are exposed to
screen readers. However, you cannot force screen readers to read specific text at specific times
or control the manner in which that content is read. It is very important, therefore, to test
your applications with a variety of screen readers to ensure that they perform as you expect.
See "Testing accessible content" on page
Flash and Microsoft Active Accessibility (Windows
only)
Flash Player is optimized for Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) which provides a highly
descriptive and standardized way for applications and screen readers to communicate. MSAA
is available for Windows operating systems only. For more information on Microsoft
Accessibility Technology, visit the Microsoft Accessibility website at
enable/default.aspx.
The Windows ActiveX (Internet Explorer plug-in) version of Flash Player 6 supports MSAA,
but the Windows Netscape and Windows stand-alone players do not.
MSAA is currently not supported in the opaque windowless and transparent windowless
modes. (These modes are options in the HTML Publish Settings panel, available for use
with the Windows version of Internet Explorer 4.0 or later, with the Flash ActiveX
control.) If you need your Flash content to be accessible to screen readers, avoid using
these modes.
Flash Player makes information about the following types of accessibility objects available to
screen readers using MSAA. To understand how to enter accessible information for each
object, see "Using Flash to enter accessibility information for screen readers" on page
Dynamic or static text
MSAA convention, the name is equal to the contents of the text string. A text object can also
have an associated description string. Flash uses the static or dynamic text immediately above
or to the left of an input text field as a label for that field.
Any text that is a label is not passed to a screen reader. Instead, the content of that text is
used as the name of the object that it labels. Labels are never assigned to buttons or text
fields that have author-supplied names.
514 Creating Accessible Content
533.
The principal property of a text object is its name. To comply with
www.microsoft.com/
516.