JAWS 508 Compliance?

[wr4opr]

Has anyone been successful hearing a .swf via JAWS? Any tips for optimizing accessibility much appreciated.

[hanszorg2]

what is jaws

[wr4opr]

JAWS is a screen reader. It uses an integrated voice synthesizer that works with the computer's sound card to output electronic content. It also outputs refreshable Braille Displays. see: http://www.freedomscientific.com

[rdoyle720]

Flash can be very difficult to make accessible, because the structure of a Flash movie can be very complex. In my company we have a man who uses JAWS, and we have tested a few Flash movies with him. Basically the key seems to be don't nest your clips too much, and make use of the Accessibility panel.

[wr4opr]

Yes, thanks, that has definitely been our experience. The general Industry standard currently directs the user to either a <noembed> or <noscript> equivolet, be it a animated gif or static image with the screen reader pulling data from the alt tag.

[schmudu]

Hi There,
I am using Flash MX 2004.

I have followed Macromedia's tutorials on accessibility and haven't been able to hear any audio using JAWS, Window-Eyes, or the Windows built-in accessibility narrator.

Does anyone have a link to a site that works for their particular browser? Or even better yet a Flash tutorial that works for them?

Thanks!
Patrick

[flashpipe1]

Did you ever have any luck with the 508? I'm getting ready to start a conversion and would value any input...

Thanks!

[nick1572]

I know this is late but I'm using an intel mac with parellels with windows xp load and I'm using the demo verion of JAWS and Window's Eye's and all is working. Wish we had more of this on here.

[vinayak.kadam]

well, need some info about how does JAWS integrates with flash pages! Please let me know a few ideal rules of how JAWS will read teh text inside flash. I think it reads
right -> left and top -> bottom.....

also I read somewhere that if I set a tab index value then JAWS reads teh text as per the tab Index values irrespective of their location on stage!

I have many more questions and I am really confudes from where to start....if you anwer these it wud be more than enough for me!

I have a very good experience in Flash but never worked on projects with screen reading facilities

[nick1572]

Hi!

I've been testing with JAWS and always set a tab index for the elements I want the user to interact with. I'm not sure exactly how JAWS reads without setting these but I believe you may be right. It does seem to flow top to bottom. I control things by creating alternate button and/or mc's for each item I want the user to encounter. I direct them through the piece. Yes if set the tabs JAWS will read them as you set them.

First thing I do is test to see if a screenreader is there. If so, then active the alternate buttons. If not then, make them invisible. Let me know if this is still confusing.

[vinayak.kadam]

One more update from my side...may help others who are looking forward to work with JAWS!

I recently worked on a project which included screen reader. Silly problem happening was that the yellow rectangle i.e. the focusrect was not happening and after several days of debugging we were surprised to know that if any component is used in your file (TextArea component in our case) then teh focusrect is lost and a wierd behaviour is observed from the SWF because of which screen reader does not works!

I can point to some links which mention something in same manner. A google search will help you to know more about this.