Making Multimedia Accessible

Multimedia like Flash movies, sound files, and QuickTime clips are harder to make accessible, because you aren't just working with a single static image, so you can't just sum up the information in the multimedia file with a simple text description. Moreover, accessibility tools usually can't pick out the text inside a multimedia file for conversion to spoken words or Braille.

Unfortunately, there isn't a quick and easy way to make multimedia accessible. The World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C, offers some solutions, but they're all on the labor-intensive side, and have an unwieldy, counterintuitive feel. For instance, according to the W3C, your multimedia presentation should include a synchronized audio soundtrack that narrates the visuals, much like a play-by-play radio broadcast of a baseball game, along with full text captioning. As a workaround, you could provide a plain-text transcript of the multimedia content or create a separate series of pages that gives the same information in a more accessibility-friendly format.

The truth of the matter is that most of the multimedia on the Web isn't accessible at all. Making an existing presentation accessible often involves starting from scratch and redesigning the thing from the ground up. In addition, you may need to purchase new equipment such as quality microphones and sound-editing software. Of course, all this extra content inside the multimedia file can increase its file size, which makes it less convenient for your visitors to download and enjoy. For these reasons, many accessibility-conscious Web sites prefer to avoid multimedia altogether.

FAQ

Where can I learn more about accessibility recommendations?

For an exhaustive discussion of accessibility recommendations, see www.w3.org/WAI/.

Software companies are working on the problem. Macromedia in particular distinguishes itself with its Flash MX authoring tool, which just about everyone uses to build Flash movies. Flash MX lets you embed text equivalents, keyboard shortcuts, and other accessibility enhancers into your Flash content. These aren't magic solutions by any stretch, but they're definitely steps in the right direction. Seeing as how Flash is the most popular multimedia format on the planet, any type of progress is encouraging. However, the bottom line is this: No multimedia format is 100% accessible, and don't let anyone tell you differently, especially the Flash people. If you want to include multimedia on your site, get acquainted with the W3C's recommendations, and be prepared to spend the extra effort to do it right.