We have come across several Coming Soon rollover buttons. Sometimes button objects are used that do not actually have an OnRelease event, but just an OnRollOver state. Nothing happens when you click them, just when you roll over them. This is clear to a sighted user, but to a screen reader user it might be confusing when the button reads as a ‘button’, but nothing happens when it is clicked.

TIP: For buttons that only have a rollover state and no release event, consider setting the button to .silent. Then make a hidden text field behind the button that holds the information, alt text or text. The button itself can still have a .tabIndex and can still be rolled over by tabbing. Users cannot tab to a text field, so it will remain hidden. This way the screen reader avoids reading ‘button’, but will just read the message ‘Coming Soon’.

To read all the tips, select ‘Flash Accessibility Tips’ on the side bar.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 22nd, 2008 at 12:50 am and is filed under Flash Accessibility Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.