Required
Use standard components for Flash whenever possible. If you can not make your content accessible using Flash, then you must provide an alternative view. See "Alternative View" below.
Flash creates a lot of problems for accessiblity. Flash editing tools like those provided by Macro Media have a good deal of accessibility built in, and if the developer chooses to fill in the accessibility fields, can provide a high level of accessibilty for buttons, links and forms. Of course it is difficult to provide an equal experience for those Flash designs that make heavy use of multi media. Certainly multi media should be captioned, but creating an experience for a screen reader may be nearly impossible or so costly it is not worth it. Never-the-less, we should take extra caution to make sure presentations like on-line sweepstakes like "Gold-Rush (tm)" is usable by all. If you can not make the Flash usable by all, please offer an alternative view. Please be sure to build accessiblity into all 3rd party contracts.
Guidelines:
Here is an example of the Dynamic Lead done in Flash:
Here is the same Dynamic Lead done in HTML. Can you see the difference?
When testing Flash, it should meet all the requirements for any web page. Accessible Forms, Images, tables, buttons, and keyboard accessibility just to mention a few.
If it does not, then an alternative view should be created.
TBD