Rich Media Accessibility

LIke any new technology, adoption is driven by accessibility. This concerns developers and users alike. Rich media players, being the interface between developers and users are the center of accessiblity standards issues.

Rich Media Accessiibility

Rich media accessibility presents a number of challenges. Whlist it can be developed with accessibility in mind and the end product is used or viewed on accessible media players.

Accessing rich media captioning, audio description, and navigation is generally done using a keyboard.

Media Player Accessibility

Media players must also be accessible to both users and developers. This includes screen readers.

They must also provide authors with the means to add captions, audio descriptions, extended audio descriptions, and subtitles.

Audio Descriptions

Current level of accessibility for media players varies greatly. Some media players are accessible to developers, allowing them to add video descriptions to be created and played, but are inaccessible to screen readers. This means the audio descriptions is not able to select the PLAY button.

Captions

Captions are not compatible between players. This means that a caption created on one player, will look different when played on another.

Whilst a number of media players are progressing rapidly in improving accessibility of their products, we have a way to go before full interoperability.

The best place to keep updted on accessible rich media is the National Center for Accessible Media Rich Media Accessibility. This site provides a showcase of accessible rich media; tutorials on captioning audio, descriptive video, making maps and other forms of rich media accessible; strategies for dealing with player and cross-platform issues; links to tools for rich media authoring and viewing.

Next: Measuring Interactivity