Usability and Accessibility

Web site usability refers to qualities such as users' satisfaction, ease of learning, ability to remember site organization and functionalities, effectiveness, efficiency and likelihood of errors while performing the tasks the site has been designed for (www.usablenet.com). A high degree of usability is a primary goal of any web site design.

Flash offers ways to improve users' experience with the Web. For example, it can provide conditional enabling/disabling of data fields in a dynamic way impossible with static HTML or even Javascript.

It can be used as an alternative method for validating data input fields that is browser independent (unlike Javascript) and relatively simple.

Flash can also provide immediate customized data to users, in formats such as charts, graphs, tables and maps.

The examples sites below demonstrate Flash's potential for improved Web usability:

Broadmoor Hotel - Reservation System

Accessibility refers to making a Web site that's available to everyone, regardless of disabilities such as visual motion impairment. Devices such as screen readers have long been used to provide an audio alternate to on-screen graphics. Flash content had always been problematic for these devices, as its self-contained movie format did not allow for interaction with screen readers, and navigation within the movie often relied on complex mouse movements that were difficult for motion-impaired individuals.

In Flash MX, support for Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) allows users of assistive technologies such as screen readers to access the contents of a Macromedia Flash movie. This means that, for the first time, text elements, buttons, input text fields, movie clips, and even entire movies may be made accessible to screen reader users.

With Flash Player 6, text contained within a Macromedia Flash movie is accessible by default. As in HTML, however, graphic elements require a text equivalent for the screen reader to read in place of the image. The use of text equivalents for Macromedia Flash content (similar to ALT tags for images in HTML) allows designers and developers to optimize the accessibility of their content for screen reader users.

The Accessibility panel, new to Flash MX, allows designers and developers to provide a text equivalent for a single element or for a group of elements within Macromedia Flash content. Some examples of accessible sites:

Kellogg School of Management

Mini-tutorial on accessibility from Macromedia