Using Flash To Enter Accessibility Information For Screen Readers - MACROMEDIA FLASH MX 2004-USING FLASH Use Manual

Input text
Text is transferred to the screen reader. No names are transferred, except where
labeling relationships are found, and no descriptions or keyboard shortcut strings are transferred.
Buttons
The state of the button is transferred to the screen reader. No names are transferred,
except where labeling relationships are found, and no descriptions or keyboard shortcut strings
are transferred.
Documents The document state is transferred to the screen reader, but with no name
or description.

Using Flash to enter accessibility information for screen readers

Screen readers read aloud a description of the content, read text, and assist users as they navigate
through the user interfaces of traditional applications such as menus, toolbars, dialog boxes, and
input text fields.
By default, the following objects are defined as accessible in all Flash documents and are included
in the information that Flash Player provides to screen reader software:
•
Dynamic text
•
Input text fields
•
Buttons
•
Movie clips
•
Entire Flash applications
Flash Player automatically provides names for static and dynamic text objects, which are simply
the contents of the text. For each of these accessible objects, you can set descriptive properties for
screen readers to read aloud. You can also control how Flash Player decides which objects to
expose to screen readers—for example, you can specify that certain accessible objects are not
exposed to screen readers at all.
The Flash Accessibility panel
One way to provide accessibility information to screen readers is to use the Flash Accessibility
panel. The alternate approach is to enter accessibility information using ActionScript. See
"Creating accessibility with ActionScript" on page
The Accessibility panel is a self-contained property inspector that lets you set accessibility options
for individual Flash objects or entire Flash applications.
If you select an object on the Stage, you can make that object accessible and then specify options
such as a name, description, keyboard shortcut, and tab index order (Flash Professional only) for
the object. For movie clips, you can specify whether child object information is passed to the
screen reader (this option is selected by default when you make an object accessible).
With no objects selected on the Stage, you use the Accessibility panel to assign accessibility
options for an entire Flash application. You can make the entire application accessible, make
child objects accessible, have Flash label objects automatically, and give specific names and
descriptions to objects.
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Using Flash to enter accessibility information for screen readers

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