[access-uk] Re: New BBC IPlayer - can you work out how to use it?
- From: "James O'Dell" <katherineandjames@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 23:43:05 +0100
Hi Ray
Latest JFW and flash Player don't help things much I'm afraid. About to try SA
to Go. I think it would be perfectly possible for the beeb to do something
here by building in a "back one minute" and "forward one minute" button into
the flash content. The have obviously done something to make buttons such as
'play', 'pause' and 'restart' accessible since the previous version of the
IPlayer, these now speak correctly without custom labels in JAWS. So adding a
couple of extra buttons would seem to be the way to go, also possibly an edit
box which would allow you to locate a specific percentage or time position
within the content. As it is all we have is a slider control which by
definition can't be made accessible, at least not within the environment of a
browser. For the same reason, i.e. the fact that we are dealing with a web
browser rather than a standard application, scripting won't help here either.
Another issue is that, at least with JAWS, you have to keep pressing insert
+escape to force JAWS to refresh the virtual buffer whenever a page loads and
then every time you activate one of the flash elements, this updates the
information and controls that JAWS can see. So it's not intuitive at all.
Cheers
James
----- Original Message -----
From: Rays Home
To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Friday, June 27, 2008 9:22 PM
Subject: [access-uk] Re: New BBC IPlayer - can you work out how to use it?
James, glad someone else is concerned about this much less than perfect
situation re. the new BBC Flash Player.
Please repoort back when you've tried the latest version of JFW and Flash
Player. It might indeed be possible to script a solution, but I wonder at the
same time whether we are waiting on Adobe to build in propper accessible
controls.
Not only should we be writing the Beeb on this one, but our assistive tech
providers as well as Adobe, but I think in Adobe's case it is just another
faceless corporation.
Unless something's done we are going to hear a lot more here on this one.
Cheers,
Ray.
----- Original Message -----
From: James O'Dell
Subject: [access-uk] Re: New BBC IPlayer - can you work out how to use it?
Hi Ray
I've been looking at the new version of the IPlayer, and whilst I can play
programmes I haven't been able to access the rewind/fast-forward functions.
From what I can tell these controls are sliders which have to be moved with the
mouse. If you look through the IPlayer Help there is a section on
accessibility which says that the IPlayer follows accessibility standards -
Hmmm!! I have already sent an email to the BBC about this. My understanding
is that the Real Player streams will not be available in the UK from July 7th,
as the IPlayer will detect where you are and automatically default to flash
player if you are in the UK. Great! Anyway, keeping the old streams going
isn't really much of a solution, as the sound quality on the Flash versions is
better and we should have just as much of a right as anyone to be able to
access them. I am running JAWS 9 and will try installing the latest updates to
JAWS and Flash Player to see if this makes any difference, but I would also be
interested to hear from users of other assistive technologies to see if there
is some way round these problems.
Cheers
James
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