1. White Master Replace with a graphic 5.5 Tall &4.3 Wide Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.1 Matt May (@mattmay) Accessibility Engineering Lead, Adobe 3 Feb 2010 Flash accessibility

2. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.2 Overview Design considerations Flash support for accessibility APIs Authoring support in Flash CS4 Testing Flash accessibility Captioning

3. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.3 Flash accessibility architecture MSAA Flash Player Flex SDK Flash content Flex content Assistive technology Flash components Custom Flash content Custom Flash content

4. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.4 AccessibilityProperties object name description silent forceSimple shortcut noAutoLabeling

5. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.5 AccessibilityProperties.name and.description AccessibilityProperties.name Labeling information for the object. AccessibilityProperties.description Additional information on the object.

6. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.6 AccessibilityProperties.silent and.forceSimple AccessibilityProperties.silent Used to make the movie clip or root movie inaccessible to assistive technologies. AccessibilityProperties.forceSimple Used to hide all child objects for a object, resulting in a single accessible object

7. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.7 What you see when you cant see Flash movie start Flash movie end Bicycle Wheel Frame Gears Other Wheel

8. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.8 Using forceSimple Flash movie start Flash movie end Bicycle Wheel Frame Gears Other Wheel

9. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.9 Other accessibility-related code Capabilities.hasAccessibility Accessibility.isActive() Takes 2 seconds to handshake

10. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.10 AccessibilityProperties.shortcut and.noAutoLabeling AccessibilityProperties.shortcut Cue for the screen reader Does not give the object that shortcut! AccessibilityProperties.noAutoLabeling Used to toggle the Flash players ability to assign accessibility names automatically. If this property is disabled, developers need to assign names for all objects Only defined at the root movie level

11. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.11 Accessible Flash components SimpleButton CheckBox RadioButton Label TextInput TextArea ComboBox ListBox Window Alert DataGrid

12. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.12 Enabling component accessibility import fl.accessibility.ComboBoxAccImpl; ComboBoxAccImpl.enableAccessibility(); Use Accessibility.updateProperties() to refresh Flash content when its modified.

13. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.13 Testing Flash for Accessibility Designers are often visual in their way of looking at the world Devote time to learning the screen reader, then use it Test for accessibility are regular intervals Test for screen reader access at least twice a day Test other use cases at least once a week (more often on compressed schedules) Involve people with disabilities in the process User testing for large scale projects Email based feedback for smaller projects 13

14. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.14 Controlling Tab and Reading Order Inspect32 / AccExplorer32 Demo Quick tools for identifying reading order, object names, and role and state information 14

15. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.15 Controlling Tab and Reading Order Ensure objects are read in a sensible order The tab order for a Flash or Flex application is used to determine the order of the items in the MSAA tree, which is used for the reading order The MSAA tree is used in the same way that JAWS uses the DOM for HTML reading order. Use MSAA inspector tools and a screen reader to: ensure labels are read before controls ensure any instructions for controls are read before controls themselves 15

16. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.16 Controlling Tab and Reading Order Controlling reading order is different from controlling what the user reads Flash allows the focus to be programmatically moved, screen readers will respond to this in forms mode only. Screen readers maintain an off-screen model which is followed instead of the system focus, except in forms mode. 16

17. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.17 Provide Structure, Role, and State Information Screen reader user should know what every control does Buttons must be correctly identified Controls emulating standard windows controls should be identified appropriately Unusual controls should provide cues to users as to their identification, operation and state information Flash CS4s UI components handle role for you. 17

18. ® Copyright 2009 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe confidential.18 Provide Structure, Role, and State Information Every control should indicate state: Current selection. Number of possible selections. Update when selection changes. Flash CS4s UI components handle state for you. 18