Feb 8 2008

Is Adobe Flex Really Accessible? You bet your robot voice it is!

Posted by Adrock at 6:00 AM
44 comments - Categories: Flex

Aaron Cannon over at NorthTemple recently posted the following on his blog:

Is Adobe Flex Really Accessible? Short answer: no, at least not as far as I can tell.

Aaron doesn't allow for commenting on his blog but I thought this topic deserved a decent reply. Before joining Adobe I spent several years working in the public sector and got my start in public speaking covering the subject of 508 and accessibility.

Speaking as developer whose built large scale .gov websites and applications that met the US government's eGov and section 508 standards, building accessible applications for the flash player is a heck of a lot easier that building for the browser. Of course, there isn't anything inherent to Flex that just auto-magically makes you applications more accessible just because they are in the Flash player. It's still up to us as developers to code our applications in a responsible manner that inter operates well with the existing tools like JAWS (the leading screen reading software). However, there are some things about Flex that make our lives a lot easier. When asked about Flex accessibility (which comes up quite frequently) it's almost a joke to point out that it's as easy as 'accessible = true'.

To get started (and leap right past HTML/AJAX) all you need to do is import the accessibility scripts into your project and then enable accessible=true on the various display components. Because these objects can add a bit to the swf file size they aren't included by default. Of course all components are not made equal, but as of today there are at least 23 different components that support accessibility out of the box. Don't expect to drop a video component on the stage and magically have the audio captioned. Flex also has a much more elegant and powerful way to handle keyboard and tab navigation. The tools are all there, we just need to use em. Beyond the built-in tools, we should also embrace the rich media aspects of the Flash Player and start thinking outside of the proverbial HTML-accessibility box. For blind users, why not record an audio introduction to application that details the keyboard navigation controls?

I think where Aaron had a rough time is that most of the accessibility information on Adobe.com for Flex needs to be updated. It looks like all of the information is based off of Flex 1.5. It's definitely something that needs to be addressed and our accessibility team is working on it. I'm also willing to bet that all the applications Aaron tested weren't the best examples of applications designed to be accessible.

The other big issue here is JAWS. For those who haven't had the pleasure of developing for JAWS before... it's 'rough' to put it mildly. The first time I ever needed to install JAWS I wrestled with it for nearly a week before I could successfully navigate my site with the monitor off (a great test of an accessible app). At the time I was reminded by a blind colleague who used JAWS extensively that it took a lot of getting used to and has it's own set of quirks. For flex there are even special scripts that should be installed that extend JAWS to work better with the Flash Player. We should remember that as developers who don't rely on JAWS, it can seem harder for us to use than it is for the people who are familiar with it. Finally, we are working very closely with the JAWS team at Freedom Scientific to enhance interoperability with Adobe products.

Is Adobe Flex really accessible? My short answer is Yes. Very much so. Is accessibility in Flex as good as it could be? Definitely not. Is Accessibility in Flex a giant step forward compared to HTML/AJAX-based applications? A resounding yes.

The bottom line: If I was tasked to build an accessible application, I wouldn't use anything else other than Flex. And not just because Adobe funds my drinking habits. From a RIA perspective, developing an accessible AJAX-based application could be considered one of the levels of Buddhist hell. I shudder to think about the enormous complications involved there. From a general web perspective, the browsers were never built with accessibility in mind and screen readers like JAWS are really band-aids the to problem. They rely on screen scraping and parsing HTML to transform non-accessible content into something usable (and don't have much of any support for JavaScript or DHTML). Flex/Flash offers developers a rich set of tools to make this job easier. At the end of the day, I'm sure we would all love to build fully accessible applications, but it's time and budget that normally prevents it. Flex is a step in the right direction. It's easy now, but hopefully we'll get to a point where it's so simple that it would be unheard of to build a non-accessible application.

Comments

Aaron Cannon wrote on 02/08/08 5:21 PM

Thanks Adam for your reply. My reply to your reply is at http://www.northtemple.com/1291

Also, sorry about the lack of comments. I've been bugging the admins, so hopefully we'll get them soon.

????? wrote on 05/17/08 6:41 AM

Hypnotherapy wrote on 05/28/08 9:23 PM

How long has Flex actually been out? I can't ever seem to get a straight answer on this...

Hot Momma Celebrity Gossip wrote on 06/01/08 11:07 AM

Hypnotherapy - I think Flex has been round for at least an year or two. I heard of Flex pretty recently though.

Weddings Boca Raton wrote on 06/04/08 6:10 AM

Hot Momma - No, Flex has been out for nearly 3-4 years as I still remember I was 18 when I first read Don's book about the concepts.

Chandeliers wrote on 06/05/08 9:18 AM

Adam - Even I'd like to know when Flex came out. I did a quick Google but the query returned irrelevant results.

BreakThrough wrote on 06/06/08 1:21 PM

I haven't had a chance to work in FLEX yet, but JAWS is something I hope to never see again.

Frankk wrote on 06/06/08 2:32 PM

Yea, FLEX has been around for few years now.

DanDan wrote on 06/07/08 5:54 AM

I bet my robot voice it is. =P FLEX is pretty good!

Diabetes Food wrote on 06/07/08 8:59 AM

@ Weddings - I remember reading (well, more like..glancing) at that book a few years back. Flex really is underrated in my opinion. Great article here!

Free Myspace Layouts wrote on 06/08/08 6:44 PM

Wow, what's it take to get into building .gov websites? Where would you even go to get started? I'm assuming you have to know the right people - and needless to say, I'm sure it's quite lucrative.

Are the government standards with their websites as strict as everything else?

Web Search wrote on 06/09/08 10:59 PM

To the above commenter, there are websites that will give you all this information - just Google it. You'll find pretty much everything your looking for.

On the other hand, it definitely helps to have a recognized name in the industry, and it also helps to know people ;)

Indie Music wrote on 06/09/08 11:01 PM

My brother actually works in the government sector, and he isn't really a big fan.The standards are VERY strict, and even though he makes a nice chunk of change, I can tell he's not happy.

I'm not sure exactly what he does, but it's something with web design/maintenance.

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jeneratör wrote on 06/10/08 6:37 AM

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ankara nakliyat wrote on 06/10/08 6:38 AM

nice information.

Plumber Helper wrote on 06/10/08 4:58 PM

Anyone worked with FLEX 3.0 yet? Nice article BTW.

Car Hifi wrote on 06/11/08 5:28 AM

Plumber Helper - I've worked with Flex 3.0 and it's not that revolutionary. It does have a couple of new features but nothing totally out-of-the-box.

London Escort wrote on 06/12/08 8:13 AM

"On the other hand, it definitely helps to have a recognized name in the industry, and it also helps to know people ;)"

I definitely agree with this (whoever said it above) - in this day and age, you have to know someone to get ahead it seems. Oh well, all is fair!

Watch The Simpsons Online wrote on 06/13/08 7:53 PM

Knowing someone in ANY business will usually get you far ahead.

Forget what your father taught you. It's who you know, not what you know. There was a time when what you knew mattered, but it simply doesn't anymore.

Anyway, good post, and thanks for the insight.

furniture guy wrote on 06/14/08 8:31 AM

Satish from the Flex team has been working on expanding the logic available in our OLAPDataGrid to help provide an example of a Pivot Component, similar to what you'd see in Excel. It's in alpha quality, but is a great example of the power of the Flex Data Visualization Components.

Myspace Backgrounds wrote on 06/14/08 11:55 AM

Just wanted to say thanks for the awesome article.

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Is Adobe Flex Really Accessible? Short answer: no, at least not as far as I can tell

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daSSad wrote on 06/18/08 1:07 AM

Great article this one. I always love to read your articles. Keep them comming.

My Blog wrote on 06/18/08 7:38 AM

Yeah .gov sites are notoriously hard to get involved with. High standards and practices make it very hard for the average webmaster to get into. Although as they say nothing is impossible.

My Blog wrote on 06/18/08 7:41 AM

Great post, i have some work collegues who use to be in the .gov area. They hated it and have since moved into personal sites.

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ecommerce wrote on 06/19/08 5:55 PM

yes I agree .. hard to develop and work with large cumbersome Government departments .. they always change their minds!!

content management system wrote on 06/19/08 5:57 PM

i found adobe to be among the best for this kind of work.

web design links wrote on 06/19/08 5:58 PM

Flex is awesome .. gets my vote!!