Does anyone know how this type of page would have been done (click to enter the site first)? Any comment as to it's accessibility, good practice, etc. welcome. PS, it's not my website.
It's simply a Flash movie embedded into a web page. Very nice and professionally done but not "accessible" to visually impaired people. Ideally there would be a normal text version of the site to make it fully accessible.
You could probably achieve the same effect using JavaScript (I've seen some amazing things done with jQuery) and that would at least degrade gracefully.
But as it currently stands, it violates accessibility guidelines and it's not that great a user experience. Unfortunately it's a case of eye candy over common sense.
Actually Bluedreamer, depending on what they used to build the movie, they could make that movie accessible. Newer versions of Flash allow you to define elements, that are reported to MSAA, which screen readers can grab.
Even if that were true, what happens to screen reader users on the iPhone or iPad (I actually know quite a few) or those using screen readers on alternative platforms (other than Windows like Linux or Mac) or those with motor function impairments - which that specific animation only complicates. Sorry to say it but static content is the only way to eliminate the major accessibility issue spectrum - even if you can make it screen reader friendly (for a limited crowd). Personally I wouldn't qualify "accessible" as "some screen readers can use it if you make a few changes", it's certainly not in the best interests of all users to follow that model.
Precisely my point... Screen reader user + iPhone / iPad + Site using Flash alone = Epic fail.
Proclaiming Flash can be made accessible when several well known devices known to be used by the visually impaired can't even render it is unjustified.
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