Accessibility revisited - Flash sites?

Is Flash completely prejudiced against the visually impaired?

[MTKilpatrick]

Folks,

I read a few of the recent threads on accessibility, then came across a site just now that I thought might be of interest. As I understand it, Flash media pages have absolutely no access for those using screen readers, is that correct? If a site uses Flash movies for all its menus and contents, does that site become *completely* useless to anyone using a screen reader?

I was interested in going to see the BBC Big Band this Sunday, at Southend-On-Sea, so I looked at the BBC website to find the venue, and found the website for the venue in question: [thecliffspavilion.co.uk...]

Does this count as the most inaccessible website imaginable? I can't see anyway of accessing any information on the venue, the programmes, anything, without using Flash. Am I missing something, or does the Cliffs Pavillion win the booby prize for inaccessibility and overuse of silly, gimmicky Flash graphics and drivel?

Michael

[BlobFisk]

Flash is neither accessibile nor is it SE friendly, and despite Jacob Neilson's collaboration with Macromedia to try and make Flash usable (and accessible) I remain highly sceptical.

Now, don't get me wrong, Flash has it's uses (online cosmetic demos for example), but not in web page construction!

[BlobFisk]

A little off the Flash topic, but there is an interesting article on the BBC website today about a plan by the UK government to make official sites accessible could be in danger due to funding.

The full article is here [news.bbc.co.uk]

[Hardwood Guy]

Now, don't get me wrong, Flash has it's uses (online cosmetic demos for example),but not in web page construction! Boy ain't that the truth. Looking at some guys in my industry I noticed one the other day that had a great site, filled with lots of content----UNTIL somebody flashed it. I wonder what they think of the big drop in traffic.

Now there's nothing for the search engines to eat.

[Hester]

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Flash run off an HTML file which contains the text used in the Flash movie?

[benihana]

when you export flash with the 'publish' feature, it does generate the html file, and copies all the text etc from the movie in as html comments, which, afaik, count for nothing to the SE's

[BlobFisk]

Not by default, Hester. It is possible to create a flash movie this way, but even still, the call (to the external file) is embedded in the Flash object and 'invisible' to all other applications.