Macromedia opens 'Net accessibility

Macromedia last week unveiled new versions of its Flash multimedia player and authoring software that work with screen readers, a move that Web site accessibility advocates say is a boon to disabled Internet users.

The software, which will be available March 15, supports Microsoft's Active Accessibility (MSAA), a standard interface for assistive devices such as screen readers to work with Windows-based applications. Developers can use Macromedia's latest software to retrofit Flash content to support screen readers and create new accessible Flash content.

Macromedia's release of Flash Player 6 and FlashMX is good news for public-sector network executives, who are scrambling to meet new rules regarding Web site accessibility.

The federal government's so-called Section 508 rules require agencies and their contractors to ensure that users of assistive devices can navigate their Web sites or face penalties and potential lawsuits.

The U.S. government's new Section 508 rules went into effect last summer, but similar regulations are cropping up in other markets such as Canada and Europe. Therefore, a growing number of multinational companies are starting to grapple with Web site accessibility.

"Section 508 has effects far beyond the U.S. government," says Bob Regan, accessibility product manager at Macromedia. "We're seeing similar requirements all over the world. The European Union adopted similar rules in December."

Earlier versions of Macromedia's Flash player and authoring tools did not work with assistive devices such as screen readers for the visually impaired. So developers who cared about Web site accessibility had to use regular HTML content instead of multimedia tools like flash.

Now FlashMX has a new panel that makes it easier for developers to provide descriptive text alternatives for graphic elements such as animations created in Flash.

Developers can create a single text equivalent for a Flash animation, and they can make sure the text equivalents are not repetitive for users of screen readers.

The Flash Player 6 lets users of screen readers activate buttons and navigate to places on the Web where they couldn't go before - a major change given that an estimated 25% of Web sites use Flash content, according to Macromedia. Sony Classical, Bose and E*Trade are among the companies that use Flash content on their Web sites.

However, FlashPlayer 6 works with only one screen reader: GW Micro's Window-Eyes. Because of its support for Microsoft's accessibility standard, FlashPlayer 6 doesn't work with the other major screen reader on the market called JAWS for Windows.

"Window-Eyes users will see huge areas of the Web that weren't there before," Regan says.

The Macromedia offerings are significant despite this limitation, says Andrew Kirkpatrick, a Web accessibility specialist with the National Center for Accessible Media.

"It's a very positive step in the right direction," Kirkpatrick says. "In a perfect world, a solution would come up that works with all the screen readers and is easy for developers. But unfortunately, we're not in that world."

Kirkpatrick has been testing the new Flash tools for the past few months and says they represent "an exciting change from the past. Before, if you had a Flash presentation on a page, nothing could read it. Now someone with a screen reader . . . can access that content."

Macromedia may have a leg up on other multimedia companies with the new accessibility features of Flash. Apple's QuickTime software and RealNetwork's RealPlayer let developers add accessible captions to multimedia presentations, but they don't allow users to navigate into the presentations as Flash does.

"All multimedia players have problems with accessibility on the Web," Kirkpatrick says. "It would be great if we could get all the other multimedia players to expose information to screen readers like Flash does."

Indeed, Macromedia may open a new market for flash. Government Web masters "haven't thought about using Flash because of accessibility concerns," Regan says.

In addition to improvements in accessibility, Flash Player 6 features native video and the ability to load MP3 and JPEG files.

The FlashMX authoring tool boasts a new scripting language based on Java, faster XML data transfers and support for the Unicode standard used in multilingual applications.

Flash Player 6 is a free download, while FlashMX sells for $500.