Is Flash actually accessible?

I've been having a bit of a read on Fadtastic recently about a very interesting article on the accessibility features of Adobe Flash.

As a massive fan of Flash, one of the most frustrating things for me was the lack of ability for an embedded object to return focus to it's parent page... Virtually rendering it inaccessible for obvious reasons.

However Johan, of http://designmatters.zoic.be/, has come up with a very interesting test which you can see here which opens up an interesting idea. Unfortunately it uses javascript to control the focus but it's certainly got me thinking.

I'll update you if we get anywhere!

Accesskey's are bad - UPDATE

Not long ago I wrote an accessibility article as to why accesskeys were a bad idea... Well I'd like to further that discussion with the release of FireFox 2.0, not so long ago, and a new issue that has arisen.

In a somewhat intuitive 'hack' to avoid access keys colliding with its browser shortcut keys the guys behind FireFox 2.0 introduced a new combination of keystrokes to implement accesskeys by adding the SHIFT key. Therefore to activate access keys in FireFox 2.0 the combination is now Shift+Alt+{key}. I.e. to activate an access key with the value of H would be Shift+Alt+H.

Great I hear you say... The combination no longer clashes with the browser's shortcut key i.e. pressing Alt+F will activate the File menu as expected. However inevitbaly (God I sound like such a pessimist!) this is by no means a great solution - just try holding down SHIFT+ALT+0 with one hand for example... Tricky isn't it?

On that note another issue is the fact that numeric access keys no longer work in FF2 (without accessing the config and changing the default settings that is). That means that the functionality of all accessibility optimised websites that have numeric values for access keys currently setup, will no longer work in FireFox 2.0.

Hands up who wants to tell all those accessibility gurus currently referring to the UK government's e-GIF recommendations?

Is Web 2.0 a step backwards for accessibility?

In a recent article on ZDNet Robin Christopherson, head of accessibility services at AbilityNet warns "Web 2.0 won't close the door, but it will make creating accessible websites fraught with many more potential pitfalls and you'll really have to keep your eye on the accessibility ball all the way through to make an accessible product at the end".

I guess this could be argued both ways, seperating content from the presentation layer is certinaly a fantastic step forward - it enhances search engine optimisation and undoubtedly makes the content more accessible to a wider range of browsers but the point Christopherson is trying to make is that user generated content can often lead to more problems than it solves.

Front loaded content: the principle of one idea per paragraph; is a valid point here... After all if you are allowing any Tom, Dick & Harry to enter content who is going to validate it?

Another valid point made is the use of Ajax based technologies and the fact that many companies are happy to jump on the band wagon without considering the users who can't use such technologies in their browsers.

I think the point here is that Web 2.0 isn't the cause and yet it certainly isn't the solution.

Make sure you check out the article here