Just came across an interesting article. All European countries have signed a plan that could make accessible sites mandatory. One thing that I found interesting is currently 81 per cent of Web Sites in the United Kingdom are inaccessible. Imagine if 81 percent of shopping centers were inaccessible to people with special needs, would probably cause an uproar.

As developers this is something we should all be thinking about. As Flash developers it isn’t as easy to cover all accessibility needs. But there are accessibility classes that can enhance the experience for users in need.

One of the best ways is to give the user a choice. Flash is really just a presentation layer. The data should be seperated, provide the user with a valid HTML or XHTML layer that screen readers and other computer assistance devices will have no problem navigating. The XHTML layer can even be used as the data source for the Flash presentation layer. A good example of this approach can be seen here: http://codeazur.com.br/stuff/fugsp/.

The article I referenced can be read here: http://news.com.com/2100-1036_3-6084113.html?part=rss&tag=6084113&subj=news.