InDesign SWF and accessibility/508 compliance

Hi,
I'm trying to ensure a simple SWF I created in InDesign meets basic accessibility requirements. Can I do this with InDesign's tagging features? Would it work similar to creating an accessible PDF?
Thanks

I'm guessing that that is not possible in InDesign's SWF files.
I think you would have to do that in Flash Professional.
Googling "SWF accessibility" brought me to this link to some Adobe TV videos:
http://tv.adobe.com/watch/accessibility-adobe/accessible-video-and-swf-content-for-flash-/

Similar Messages

Flex 3 And Section 508 Compliance

Hey guys,
We are developing a new RIA that has pretty complex screens,
navigation system, modal modules loading on top of others, detailed
interaction with grids, trees, etc. and a requirement for making it
508 compliant has come across my desk.
I've done a bit of research on what Adobe has to offer on
their compliance. The components look to be compliant, but from
what I can tell the compliance works best on simple forms and
screens that don't require a great deal of complexity. I'm also
having trouble finding real world examples of people who have
developed complex RIAs in Flex made for 508 compliance.
Silverlight is also being evaluated, and I'm not sure if they
are any better when it comes to the complexity of a deep RIA.
Does anyone here have any experience developing for 508 in
Flex, and if so can you shed some light on what challenges a
developer might face, or any short comings of Flex that would
prevent it from conforming to 508?
I'd also appreciate any RIAs anyone can point me to that are
508 compliant, they seem to be few and far, even the ones listed at
Adobe, most are broken links or no longer available.
Thanks.

That is a concern for state governments as well. We (alaska)
are required to make our (outward facing) sites compliant. Flex
will not allow that unless you stick to the basics ... however, if
you do that, then you might as well script in html as the results
would be basically the same.

Is it possible to store indesign swf and resources in different location than html

I am using an email blast program to create a micro-site, but it doesn't let me store the html file with the swf and resources. When I upload the swf and resources to an external server and go directly to the swf address, the swf plays and the sound works. When I reference the swf in an html document on a different server than the swf and it's resources, the swf plays but the resources don't (sound files). Is there a way to make this work?

I am using an email blast program to create a micro-site, but it doesn't let me store the html file with the swf and resources. When I upload the swf and resources to an external server and go directly to the swf address, the swf plays and the sound works. When I reference the swf in an html document on a different server than the swf and it's resources, the swf plays but the resources don't (sound files). Is there a way to make this work?

ApEx and Section 508 compliance

1. Is ApEx section 508 compliant? 
2. Any documentation available on this topic? 
(Section 508: employees with disabilities need to have access to information and data in a manner comparable to the access and use by employees who are not individuals with disabilities) Vasan

Hello,
1. Is ApEx section 508 compliant? APEX can build 100% 508/DDA compliant applications. What Apex does not do is enforce 508/DDA compliance nor does it automatically insert accessibility features. Tab index's shortcuts to skip navigation , proper headings etc. This is left up to the developer to do so that you can properly address your application and or organizations accessibility requirements.
One thing that is sometimes a sticking point is APEX's use of javascript. While you can create an APEX application that does not use javascript it has quite limited functionality. APEX does follow Oracle's stance on accessibility and javascript.
http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/standards.html
JAWS testing has also taken place with APEX and with properly built applications and the applications work great.
2. Any documentation available on this topic? Building an accessible application in APEX is exactly like building an accessible application in any HTML environment. Set your tabindex's correctly, make sure data tables have proper headings , make sure that labels are properly linked to form items and such. There used to be a APEX and accisislbuity blog posting but I don't think it's available anymore. Searching this forum will also return you some results.
Most accessibility issues come from improperly constructed templates, and making sure that page report and label templates have accessible features usually takes care of most issues.
Our VPAT can be found here http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/templates/t780.htm and is currently being updated to cover all versions up to 3.1 , there have only been minor changes.
APEX is also going to start taking advantage of ARIA features http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/aria so that developers can more easily create rich interactive applications that still can use AJAX and other DHTML features. But there is no reason you can't start including ARIA features in your applications today.
Regards,
Carl
blog : http://carlback.blogspot.com/
apex examples : http://apex.oracle.com/pls/otn/f?p=11933:5

XHTML Validation and Accessibility

We've recently completed developing some Application Express systems for a customer, and they were disappointed the pages did not pass W3C XHTML validation to meet their accessibility targets.
I've had the chance to do a bit of a post-mortem and nailed some issues that were down to our templates. I've also noted some previous threads here (notably Re: Validation!!! and Re: HTML DB and Accessibility (AA-Compliance) and look forward to resolution of markup validation issues in future releases. In the meantime, here are the most frequent problems we encountered. I'd appreciate any explanations, and any suggestions on how to improve matters in the short term.
INVALID ENTITIES
The majority of the validation errors are like:
Cannot generate system identifier for general entity "p_fname"
General entity "p_fname" not defined and no default entity
Reference not terminated by REFC delimiter
Reference to external entity in attribute value
Reference to entity "p_fname" for which no system identifier could be generated
Entity was defined here
Where the App Ex engine is generating internal URLs and not escaping ampersands, that are then interpreted by the validator as forming part of an entity. This isn't disastrous, but an early fix in a future release would be welcome as it would reduce the number of errors and make it easier to spot any arising from invalid template code.
Am I right in thinking that storing CSS, images and scripts externally to App Ex would eliminate this?
STANDARD HTML BUTTONS
All "HTML Buttons" result in:
Value of attribute "type" cannot be "BUTTON"; must be one of "text", "password", "checkbox", "radio", "submit", "reset", "file", "hidden", "image", "button"
There is no attribute "onClick"
End tag for "input" omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Where the engine is generating an attribute value in uppercase and attribute names in camel-hump case instead of all lowercase. We can work round this by creating an "HTML Button" template with valid attributes and values.
ITEM LABEL
Reference to non-existent ID "P1_DATASET_CATEGORIES"
Where the label is the overall label for a checkbox item with multiple checkboxes, all of which have their own valid label. Should the engine include the checkbox item as a hidden item? Can we work round this by doing that manually, e.g. in Post Element Text?
HEADERS
Reference to non-existent ID "GV_VALUE"
Where a report has report has Headings Type "None" and hence no <th>s for headers attributes to refer to. Is there a workaround for this?
REPORT BREAK FORMATTING
End tag for "br" omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
 tags inserted by break processing within the engine are not terminated " />". This is not controllable by any template (that I am aware of) - anything that can be done?
TEXT FIELDS
This is rather puzzling, as it seems to be random: items on some pages are affected, those on others are not. Anyone have an explanation?
There is no attribute "TYPE"
There is no attribute "NAME"
There is no attribute "SIZE"
There is no attribute "MAXLENGTH"
There is no attribute "VALUE"
There is no attribute "id"
Element "INPUT" undefined
End tag for "INPUT" omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Reference to non-existent ID "P5_ENTRIES_DISPLAYED"
Where the engine is generating an element and attribute names in uppercase instead of all lowercase. From earlier threads, I'm presuming nothing can be done at present.
HYPERLINK
There is no attribute "HREF"
Element "A" undefined
As above: element and attribute names in uppercase instead of all lowercase.
TABLE HEADING/DATA ALIGNMENT
Value of attribute "align" cannot be "LEFT"; must be one of "left", "center", "right", "justify", "char"
Attribute value generated in uppercase. Any workaround?
REPORT SORT ARROW
End tag for "img" omitted, but OMITTAG NO was specified
Sort arrow <img> element not terminated " />". Any workaround? (Or can this be suppressed completely/replaced?)

Hello,
Most of your issues are things we are aware of and hope to get fixed in 3.0 as they are produced from an engine specifically using htf package to render elements which we will be changing. Unfortunatly with most of those issues I see there I don't think you can do much.
I doubt the html the engines produce will pass xhtml strict in 3.0 but we will pass xhtml transitional (other than maybe urls in links) with a custom DTD that takes into account things we output in our namespace.
Carl

Load external swf and consume your lybrary

dear friends flashers,
I need to load a swf into another swf and access objects that are in the library.
load a swf into another is not my problem the problem is to create an instance of an audio exported to action script contained in the child swf.
Has anyone had this problem? help me?
Thanks.
Marcio.

I founded by myself, I just created a movie clip of this button and here is my code in case someone has the same problem...
import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import flash.display.Loader;
import flash.net.URLRequest;
var loader:Loader = new Loader();
loader.load(new URLRequest("MyInDesignSwf.swf"));
addChild(loader);
addChild(home_front);
home_front.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK,playClickedExit)
stop();
function playClickedExit(event:MouseEvent):void
removeChild(loader);
gotoAndPlay(90);

Accessibility-mode set to inaccessible and 508 compliance

Hi,
I'm using JDEV 10.1.3.3.0.
I've set accessibility-mode to inaccessible in adf-faces-config.xml in order to set the InitialFocusID on some of my pages. Does this setting mean that my application is not/cannot be 508 compliant?
Is there a way to use the InitialFocusID (or other way to position the cursor) and use ADF Faces automatic 508 compliance code?
TIA,
Dave

Hi,
ensure you use the correct version of JAWS. In the past I've seen things like this caused by the JAWS reader. If the problem still shows and you have a support contract, provide a test case and file a bug
My problem is when i use tab key from keyboard to navigate on the page the component highlights(dotted line around the component ) but it does not open the required popup.
This is because there is no setting in your page code that says that the popup should show when the component is in focus.
+<af:showPopupBehaviour popupId="alertPopup" triggerType="mouseOver" align="startbefore"/>+
+<af:showPopupBehaviour popupId="alertPopup" triggerType="contextMenu" align="startbefore"/>+
Frank

Adobe Presenter 8 and 508 Compliance

So I am in the middle of work for the US government. The output needs to be 508 compliant to meet Federal regulations. I have been building projects in Presenter 7 and using workarounds to achieve 508 compliance (e.g. printed script/handout in PDF). I have been informed that from here on out, no workarounds will be accepted -the presentation MUST be 508 compliant in the manner that they test. With that in mind, has Presenter 8 improved the accessibility of its output files compared to Presenter 7? JAWS compatibiilty, in particular, is what I need to know. The folks doing my 508 testing use JAWS and it always raises flags with Presenter output.
Before I drop the money to get the latest version of Presenter, I am wondering if things have improved or if I should be looking at another solution?

Hi Mukul,
Thanks for the prompt reply!
My compliancy checker sent me the following notes (unfortunately, not as specific as I would like):
html version:
Videos need running timer bar.
Slides just stop; no indication that you need to select "next slide" in the menu.
Not all slides are read by JAWS; rather, it reads around the slide like it isn't there – check coding.
All charts and graphics need alt-tags.
and for the PDF version:
508 Compliancy &JAWS:
JAWS needs to be able to see a flash file, whether it is in a webpage , within a .pdf, or self contained. The flash movie needs to be “described” Within Adobe Flash Professional there is an option and the ability to access the “Accessibility Panel.” But this Digging Deeper Demo.PDF was developed within Adobe Presenter, and I have yet to create a project with this tool, so I am unsure there is the same “Accessibility Panel.” If there is not, I would imagine there is something similar to ensure the flash portion of the .PDF is seen by JAWS or any screen reader.

AS3 and 508 Compliance?

Hi,
When setting up Flash content to be 508 compliant, has anyone encountered any issues in tabbing through the buttons? It seems that the buttons' descriptions aren't being picked up by the screen reader.
Thanks,
Dan

I've done (partial) 508 compliance with AS3 on a couple projects this year and last year. In the end, we decided to make the Flash version of the project "half-way" 508 compliant (which isn't really 508 compliant then, is it?) - we only focussed on tab navigation, not the screen reader. We then provided an HTML, text-only version for those who prefer the nice and simple HTML screen reader experience. I got lucky here and wasn't forced to figure out a way of dealing with full Flash + screen reader technology (but it would have been a great learning experience).
Like you, Dan, I also expereinced lots of inconsitency with what a screen reader reads when I was trying & testing things in AS3. For example, there are two ways to set up the accessible name & description for a button - via the Accessibility panel, or via AS3 code. Either way you choose, it's done - easy to do...at least as far as preping your Flash file. However, regardless of a developer doing things perfect there, we have two other levels of inconsistency: the screen reader being used, and the browser being used. I can't remember the combinations of things, but sometimes I'd get a screen reader to read the name of a tabbed-to button, other times nothing would get read. Frustrating, indeed. It's not that I programmed Flash incorrectly...it's that the technology isn't standard or consistent enough. But, then again, my experience was somewhat limited.
I don't have any answers for you, sadly, and can only to say "test, test, test", and search the heck out of it online. Luckily for us developers, the two top PC-based screen readers are avilalbe as free demos (though they only run for a limited time before you must restart your computer, which you may already be familiar with): Windows Eyes, and JAWS. A company in the UK also has one called Thunder that is totally free, but also behaves differently.When testing with a screen reader, it's also really important to learn each one's various keyboard shortcuts.
Also, if possible, working with a user who DEPENDS on screen readers for their daily lifestyle gets you the most feedback. I never got to do this, but felt that learning how a person uses a screen reader, like JAWS, and how they use the shortcuts, would provide a lot of insight.
In a nuthsell, I was only able to get complete control over a somewhat complex interface via tabbing. But I wasn't able to "conquer" the screen reader experience with AS3.
Things really get hairy when you want to update just one portion of a screeen, and have that new content - and only that - read via the screen reader. Any asynchronously updated screen type of experience has these problems, though - Flash isn't totally alone. AJAX and other HTML/JavaScript experiences can also be limited, or be challenging for developers.

508 compliance and rollovers

The client wants full 508 compliance but also a couple of slides to have rollover interactions. Most of the 508 compliance issues are easy to solve in 7. However, I'm not finding a good solution for the issue of what to do about the rollovers, since complete 508 compliance means the user who can not operate a mouse must be accommodated. The only thing I'm coming up with is to branch off with the rollovers on one branch and an option that doesn't require them on the other. Has anybody figured out a more elegant solution?
To further complicate matters some on the team that will be hosting don't want Flash. I can see substituting drag and drop for the rollovers, but there's still the problem of needing a mouse.
thank you.

Jumping in while Rod sleeps on the other side of the world.
Don't use a click box if you're trying to be 508 compliant - the click box will fail every test - no screen readers pick it up.
Don't set "Enter" as a shortcut key - it's already assigned by Captivate (and every major screen reader) as a default key and this will foul up your accessibility
If you are using the playbar -
Rod is correct - if you've got the playbar showing in the lesson, the "tab/enter" sequence will only advance the slide when the "forward" button on the playbar is selected. While you can change the behaviors and tab orders of buttons and other interactives you create within the project, you can't reset the tabbing sequence for the playbar (unless you build your own custom bar, but let's not go there).
As far as the tab staying within the flash and not going out to the browser - that's a seamless tabbing issue that seems to have risen from the dead after the last couple of Cp7 updates. You need to turn seamless tabbing off - which is supposed to be accomplished by making sure the box on the publish window is NOT checked:
If this works, it resets the parameter in your .js file to turn seamless tabbing off. The problem is, it seems to work occasionally - see http://forums.adobe.com/message/6113307#6113307; http://forums.adobe.com/message/6121301#6121301; and http://forums.adobe.com/message/6097324#6097324
These seem to be the most current work-arounds to disable the function when the setting fails.

508 Compliance, Quiz Radio Button and JAWS Reader

Hello All, I'm using Captivate 5.5. The 508 compliance issue I'm having is that the Captivate-generated quiz radio buttons are not being properly read by JAWS. The 508 finding states, "When the user selects a radio button anywhere in the course, the state of the radio buttons are not made correctly for JAWS to read. Selected radio buttons are read as "unchecked radio button". Has anyone experienced and overcome this issue? How did you overcome?

You've encountered the major accessibility show stopper in using the pre-made question slides. Captivate does not allow you to set the name, role, or state for the buttons on the quiz slides, and unlabeled buttons are a deal killer for any 508 compliance test I have ever worked on. See if your testing group will allow you to include a text equivalent test that a visually impaired user can access and take either proctored on do an alternative submission. If the quiz needs to be scored for completion, there's no way to currently pass a 508 accessibility test with the standard question slides otherwise. If its just a knowledge check that will not be scored, you may be able to create a description of the question and answers and put it in the slide notes area of your slide, JAWS will read that first. you would also need to have a way for the user to get past the slide without navigating it. Details follow:
JAWS 14 reads a four answer multiple choice question slide as follows (using either tabbing or arrow keys):
1. Slide Title
2. Question Title
3. Question Text
4. radio button (unchecked) - fails 508 testing
5. text for answer A
6. radio button (unchecked) - fails 508 testing
7. text for answer B
8. radio button (unchecked) - fails 508 testing
9. text for answer C
10. radio button (unchecked) - fails 508 testing
11. text for answer D
12. radio button (unchecked) - fails 508 testing
13. Submit button
14. Question # of #
This means that a visually impaired user has to:
1. figure out that the button before each answer is related to the following answer
2. navigate through the entire slide to the submit button to be sure they have hear any and all choices
3. navigate back to through the question and answers
4. select the button that matches up with the answer; then navigate back to the submit button
5. select the submit button and (at least in Captivate 7.01.237) listen to the feedback box that opens after activating the submit button
6. navigate to the next button or playbar
In short - if you are working off an LMS that has an accessible testing area built in, build your tests there and provide a link from the last frame of your Captivate lesson. Score the test seperately from completion of your Captivate lesson.
Justenuf

508 Compliance and HTMLDB

Hello. I am looking for a statement from Oracle saying that HTMLDB is 508 compliant. I understand that the developers use of JavaScript within HTMLDB can be non-compliant but Oracle reps tell me that HTMLDB is in and of itself 508 compliant. Does anybody have a link or know where such a statement from Oracle would be? Thank you.

Hello,
To Scott? Scotts not on this thread though I'm sure he's read it :).
The issue with 508 compliance is how to make an application compliant changes from application to application.
You have to do things like skip repeating navigation,provide alternative navigation,provides specific alternative text for images things like that. Provide specific summary information for reports and tables.
Since in HTML DB we allow you to do pretty much anything if we tried to hardcode this information into templates/themes it could actually make the problem worse. That being said we have already done things like make sure that all images have alt="" tags and that all tables if used for layout have empty summary tags and that report templates have proper heading to column information.
In the end getting an application 508 compliant is the end developers job as it needs to fit within the application they are building.
There is an Accessibility section to the wiki now http://wiki.shellprompt.net/bin/view/HTMLDB/AccessibilityCategory and I will add too it some common solutions to fixing up an application.
Thanks,
Carl

508 compliance--Playback control shortcuts and screen readers

Reference to 508 compliance. If you publish the SWF file to
include the playback control bar what keyboard shortcuts work
and/or can you program them? What will screen readers programs do
with the playback control buttons?

Hmmm, so if I'm understanding the situation correctly, the
ideal response would work like this?
User types some text and is SUPPOSED to press Enter to
evaluate the text. Instead, they press Tab. Immediately upon
pressing Tab, they might see a message of some sort advising the
action is incorrect and further advising that Enter is the correct
action.
I could see this possibly happening a couple of different
ways.
1. You could insert a click box configured with a Success
caption containing the advisory information. Then set the shortcut
keystroke for the click box object to be Tab. End result should be
that the user presses Tab, sees the success caption (which looks
like a failure caption, since they didn't do what was expected) and
the action of the click box would result in re-displaying the slide
with the Text Entry box. (You do this by pointing at a .1 second
slide immediately preceding the slide with the Text Entry box.)
2. You could possibly configure the Text Entry box so that
either Enter or Tab will serve as the shortcut. You do this by
modifying the Text Entry box properties so it includes a Button as
the trigger. The trick is to assign the Enter key to the Text Entry
box itself and the Tab key to the button. (or vice-versa) Then you
configure the button so it's invisible.
Hopefully one of these helps... Rick

Embedding SWF file into an Indesign document and later export as PDF

Hi to everybody,
I am searching now since 3 days for good solution of my problem. First I wanna tell you that the problem is not just to convert a swf-file into a pdf. I did this many times with all animations, page flip and stuff.My situation is the following:
I have varios catalogues with more or less 12 pages each in an indesign format. Now I created an animated scroll down menu, which appears on an "index-page". On the menu I created buttons. One button for each catalogue. So the idea of the whole thing is to open a document and an index page appears where you have the animated menu and you choose the catalogue you wanna see. Until here it is quite easy. I created a swf file of each catalogue with my animations (as the special page turnover e.g.). So that I just need von Object in with I can load the different swf-files of these catalogues. I already did the process. I linked the buttons to the different swf files and so. So the problem is now when it comes to convert the whole thing into a PDF. Of course I convert it first to swf and then to PDF. After converting it to swf it works 100% fine, but in PDF not, suddenly the swf-files of the catalogues disappear.
So the summary is, that I don't know how to embed swf files into an indesign document, creat buttons and interactions next to swf file, then save it to another swf, and then to a pdf without losing the first swf files within the pdf.
Hope I made my self clear would be too nice if someone could help me or if someone may have a better idea of realizing the whole project.

Jeffrey,
Thank you for the answer. As you have written:
I will also add that the ID's play mode contol [plays once] [repeat play] does not always control the file once in Acrobat.
I presume you mean version of ID older than CS4 or version of Acrobat Reader older than 9.1
It that is the case I will strongly recommend my visitors to upgrade to this version.
I hope that would work.
Thanks again.
Peter

508 Compliance and HTML DB

Where can I find a document or more information illustrating the various features included in HTML DB for meeting 508 compliance?

I'm the visually impaired programmer Dan Cash was talking about. I ran into 3 basic problems:
1) Images did not have ALT text. You can give an text alternative to an image that the screen reader will speak. For example, <IMG. ALT="search". ...> will cause the screen reader to say "search" when the focus moves to the image in a browser.
2) The forms were laid out so that the text label for a data entry field didn't correspond to the field itself. Actually, I had a heck of a time registering for this forum because of this problem on your web site. As the focus moves to a data entry field, the screen reader will read the text just before the field, either to the left or above. But on the page to register with Oracle.com, there's an asterisk after every label (to indicate that the field is required). So all I hear is "star" for every field. In the HTML DB pages, some of the fields worked and some didn't. There must have been an empty table cell between the label and the input field some of the time. Or something like that.
3) Javascript crashed my screen reader. To a degree, this is a problem with the screen reader itself. But I use the most popular screen reader in the world, JAWS and I believe it's the only screen reader that works with a browser that javascript at all. In other words, if you're not using JAWS, you wouldn't be able to use HTML DB at all. With JAWS, you can sort of use it. You just have to keep restarting JAWS.
This may sound pretty bad but most apps are worse. I'm aware that I may have given you guys some serious headaches. Good luck with #3 above. #1 shouldn't be too bad though. It's easy to add text alternatives for images although, it may be a little time consuming to go through and add it.

InDesign SWF and accessibility/508 compliance

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