Creating accessible hotspots using invisible buttons

Important Information about Techniques

See Understanding Techniques for WCAG Success Criteria for important information about the usage of these informative techniques and how they relate to the normative WCAG 2.1 success criteria. The Applicability section explains the scope of the technique, and the presence of techniques for a specific technology does not imply that the technology can be used in all situations to create content that meets WCAG 2.1.

Applicability

Note

Adobe has plans to stop updating and distributing the Flash Player at the end of 2020, and encourages authors interested in creating accessible web content to use HTML.

This technique relates to Success Criterion 1.1.1: Non-text Content (Sufficient).

Description

The objective of this technique is to provide text alternatives that serve the same purpose as the clickable hotspots of an image. Each hotspot serves as a clickable region for a part of the image which can trigger an action (such as opening a web page corresponding to the hotspot). The hotspots are implemented as invisible Flash buttons, which are each given an accessible name that describes the hotspot's target.

Examples

Example 1: Graphic with accessible clickable regions

  1. Add the original graphic that needs to have clickable hotspots to the stage.

  2. For each hotspot, do the following:

    1. Create a new button symbol by choosing "New Symbol" from the Flash Professional 'Insert' menu or by using the Ctrl + F8 shortcut.
    2. Inside the button symbol, create a shape that matches the clickable surface.
    3. Place the newly created button on top of the original graphic.
    4. Open the button's properties panel, and choose "Alpha" from the "Style" dropdown list under "Color Effect". Change the value of the "Alpha" slider that appears to zero so that the button becomes invisible.
    5. Using the Accessibility panel, specify a value for the "tabindex" field to give the button a logical position in the tab order.
    6. Using the Accessibility panel, specify an accessible name that describes the purpose of the hotspot.
Figure 1adding the graphic to the Flash authoring stage
Figure 2making a button invisible using the Properties panel
Figure 3setting the button's name using the Accessibility panel

The result can be seen in the working example of creating accessible hotspots using invisible buttons. The source of creating accessible hotspots using invisible buttons is available.

Tests

Procedure

Find all images with hotspots. For each hotspot, confirm that:

  1. The hotspot is implemented as an invisible button
  2. The hotspot is provided with an accessible name, either through the Accessibility panel or through ActionScript

Expected Results

  • #1 and #2 are true