RE: FN-FORUM: How widespread is Flash Player these days?

date posted 6th September 2007 17:26

Mike wrote:
>>Rob Owen
>>Plus the fact that flash is not indexed by search engines.
>
>>Adam Reynolds
>>Your issue is also one of accessibility. Flash isn't and..
>
> Not true in either case (despite being stated as 'fact'). These are
> misconceptions typical of standardistas that don't use flash, and have
> no interest in educating themselves about its contemporary use.
>
> I suggest a read of=20
> http://warpspire.com/journal/web-production/7-flash-myths/


Um .. "Creating Accessible Macromedia Flash Content" (cited by your =
article
as evidence that Flash is Accessible) explicitly states:=20

"The majority of Flash content cannot be made natively accessible to
screen readers."

Which is a core requirement for an Accessible website. And no, having =
the
Flash movie read out its content using a proprietary built-in voiceover =
is
not the same as allowing a blind user to navigate through sections of =
page
content at their leisure using the screen reading software they have =
chosen
and been trained to use!

The article also comes up with various hacks for fixing the back button,
clipboard, bookmarking, etc .. but how often do you see =
deep-linking/back
button support actually provided on a Flash-based website? You are =
dependent
on the author coding support for basic browser functions and this is =
rarely
done, presumably due to the complexity of the hacks.=20


I am also deeply unconvinced by the performance of Flash content in =
search
engine rankings. Google may be able to index certain text inside Flash
movies, but how often do you see Flash content appearing high in search
rankings? Because the search engine has no way of distinguishing between
"pages" of content within the Flash movie, it is indexed as one big =
lump,
which will not rank well due to dilution of keywords.

As an anecdotal test, I picked a random Flash website
(www.hunandelightparkslope.com) and Googled for a phrase appearing in =
its
'Press' section: "Culinary Food Bonanza". Nothing in Google whatsoever. =
This
obviously isn't the whole picture, but it suggests that not all text is
indexed automatically from Flash movies.


I do not think it is unreasonable to state that Flash is significantly =
less
Accessible than a standard web page (both to disabled users and search
engines).

It is fantastic that Macromedia/Adobe have taken Accessibility seriously =
in
newer releases of Flash, providing tools that make it possible to build =
more
Accessible Flash sites. However, the effort involved in simply bringing =
a
Flash-site up to the Accessibility level of a standard web page (let =
alone
meeting the requirements of schemes like WCAG AA) is prohibitive for the
average project.=20

This is reflected in the poor Accessibility of the majority of =
real-world
Flash content. For every article stating "Flash is Accessible", there =
are a
dozen counter-articles: take "Accessibility in Flash bug and issue list"
(http://niquimerret.com/?p=3D94) as an up-to-date concrete example, from =
Flash
Accessibility consultant Niqui Merret.


Sorry - I wouldn't have jumped on this, but that was a pretty abrasive
criticism of some reasonable points!

Flash of course has its place: it is an invaluable, pervasive multimedia
medium with a mature toolset and established community. But to slap down
criticisms of its SEO performance and Accessibility relative to =
traditional
web pages as groundless doesn't make sense.

Cheers, Ben

--
Ben Johnson, Neogic Web Solutions
// design . development . managed hosting

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