Accessibility in PDF documents exported from InDesign is an are that many InDesign users are increasingly interested in. In response, we’ve worked with the Adobe Government team and Michael Murphy, Adobe Certified Expert, to offer a video that demonstrates InDesign accessibility best practices in action.

View the video (with closed captioning): Preparing InDesign Files for Accessibility

Hans Hillen from The Paciello Group is presenting a webinar covering Flex Accessibility on Wednesday, July 21st at 12:00 noon EST. This webinar is free, will be recorded for people who can’t attend, and will be captioned.

To attend, simply join the meeting room at http://seminars.adobe.acrobat.com/a11y, no registration or password required.

Today the W3C posted an updated techniques document for review, including for the first time a collection of techniques for Flash (and Flex) technologies.  The techniques can be viewed at http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2010/WD-WCAG20-TECHS-20100708/flash.html – please take a look and send in comments by August 9 to http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/comments/.

I’d also like to acknowledge the hard work of people at The Paciello Group who helped us assemble the techniques.  The techniques come from a wide range of sources and reflect knowledge amassed over several years of working with Flash and Flex, and as such additional credit is due to several others including Jon Avila and others at SSBBart Group, Bob Regan and Matt May at Adobe, Michael Jordan, and others.

Finally, we are also working on a collection of PDF techniques, which we aim to have available in the next round of the techniques document. We look forward to your comments.

Today the Linux Foundation announced that it was releasing IAccessible2 with new licensing terms.  IA2 is now available with a BSD license.  You can read about this change as well as the additional tools available at http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2010/07/linux-foundation-delivers-new-licensing-terms-testing-tools-accessi.  This is an important change as Adobe works to integrate IA2 into a future version of Adobe Acrobat and Reader, as well as the Flash Player and AIR.

The Adobe accessibility team is looking for an accessibility engineer, to be based in Adobe’s London office. I’m happy to discuss the position with people who are interested in learning more, but the first step should be to check out the job posting – view job description (enter job number 04099 into the job search form).
The position will provide the opportunity to have an impact on accessibility within Adobe and on the millions of end-users who use Adobe tools or output every day. Adobe is a great place to work and we have important work to do. Come work with us!
Please help spread the word about this position.

AFB Consulting and Adobe worked together to create a session that shares information about how users of assistive technologies can get the most out of PDF files that they interact with.
The session is targeted to users of assistive technologies, particularly screen reader users, and demonstrates techniques to use to access PDF using assistive technology. Topics to be covered include different types of PDFs, using Adobe Reader’s built-in accessibility features, and navigating PDF documents.
The webinar presentation document and demo files are available and will help users try techniques demonstrated by the presenters.
The recording of the session is available. The session is now also available as an mp3 file.

As promised, we’ve posted the slides from the Adobe talks at CSUN.

We shared the following about Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader at the CSUN conference:
Adobe is working on major accessibility improvements to Acrobat and Reader. Among the expected improvements, enhanced support for accessibility in PDF forms utilizing Adobe’s XML Forms Architecture (XFA) and accessibility support for PDF Portfolios are important for many users.
Adobe is building in support for IAccessible2, a robust accessibility interface provided by The Linux Foundation that allows rich information about both PDF forms and PDF Portfolios to be made available to assistive technologies. Adobe works with assistive technology vendors to ensure that they are aware of ongoing work that impacts support for PDF, and, at the appropriate time, will be providing builds to vendors that are part of Adobe’s Assistive Technology Vendor Program.
These improvements will not impact form authoring practices, but will improve the functionality of existing PDF/XFA forms and portfolios. Accessibility improvements are currently planned for the next major release of Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader.

We have good news about Flash and Flex accessibility support to share. Please check out the following statement:
Adobe understands how important it is for computer users with disabilities to be able to access the entire Internet. In recognition of the needs of computer users with disabilities, as well as the demands on developers who need to easily create applications and content which comply with global accessibility standards, Adobe is planning major upgrades to the accessibility support in Adobe Flash Player.
The upgrades expand on Flash Player’s existing support for accessibility via the Microsoft Active Accessibility interface (MSAA) and will enable accessibility across all three major operating systems (Windows, Mac, and Linux). The Flash Player will employ IAccessible2 from the Linux Foundation and the WAI-ARIA specification from the W3C to address user and developer needs and to ease interoperability with assistive technology vendors.
Additionally, enhancement are planned to the free and open-source Flex software developer’s kit (SDK) including improvements to complex components such as Flex datagrids and adding support for WAI-ARIA to simplify development of custom user interface components. These improvements are expected to start with the next major release of Adobe Flash Player (following Flash Player 10.1), and the first successive release of the Flex SDK.

I’m happy to share the news that Flex 4 and Flash Builder 4 are now available for download from the Adobe web site.
The open-source Flex SDK includes many accessibility improvements in the components to ensure that users of assistive technologies can access Flex applications more easily. During the development cycle the Adobe Flex team utilized the skill and accessibility experience provided by SSB BART Group and The Paciello Group to ensure that the accessibility implementations for standard Flex controls that developers will use are as accessible as possible. TPG and SSB were working waist-deep in the code and did a great job, not only on the exist set of components (Halo components) but also on the brand new Spark component set. As a result, the set of accessible controls is larger than ever and better than ever.
During this cycle we’ve also worked with Freedom Scientific to help reduce the need for Flex scripts for JAWS. As of right now, scripts are not needed for users of JAWS 11, although users of earlier versions of JAWS will use the existing scripts. We also worked with NVAccess and their open source screen reader NVDA, and NVDA users will have positive experiences with Flash and Flex applications also.
Read more about Flex 4 at http://www.adobe.com/products/flex. Flex is available for download at http://www.adobe.com/go/flex4_sdk.
Authoring accessible Flex application is easier than ever not only because of improvements to the components – Flex also provides new convenience properties in MXML to make adding accessibility information simple, and Flash Builder provides additional accessibility support. Flash Builder 4 (formerly called Flex Builder) is designed to help authors build rich internet applications (RIAs) using Flex. In Flash Builder 4 we’ve changed the default setting for new Flex applications to enable accessibility. In the past there was concern about impact on performance, but we feel that it is important to make Flex applications as accessible as possible with our tools.
We’ll have more information and tips about Flex 4 and Flash Builder 4 in the coming weeks. You can read more about Flash Builder 4 at http://www.adobe.com/products/flashbuilder/ and download a trial to check it our yourself.
Congratulations to the Flash Builder and Flex teams on a great release!