[commedia] Flash readers to help visually impaired

[Bill Best]

Last week, Macromedia (http://www.macromedia.com) launched Flash MX which
will allow for rich media content in websites whilst making those sites
viewable by a screen reader -
http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/accessibility/.

Screen readers (or voice output technology) are used by blind and partially
sighted people to generate a synthesised voice to read text from a screen
or to read keystrokes made by the user when using a PC.  When Flash
graphics previously loaded on a page, screen readers read nothing and
therefore left visually impaired users with no information and thus
rendered the site unusable.

The Royal National Institute for the Blind (http://www.rnib.org.uk/) has
warned that organisations whose sites are unusable by its members could be
prosecuted under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) -
http://www.disability.gov.uk/dda/.

[Above text adapted from IT Week 18-03-2002]