Multimedia is used as part of many websites on the Internet, things such as Flash, have become increasingly popular on the Internet in recent years. However web developers face many issues when trying to make multimedia on their web page accessible to blind and partially sighted users.
This is not always the web developers fault as the creators of this multimedia technology are often slow to react to accessibility issues e.g. Macromedia have been slow to address the accessibility barriers that Flash content presents to blind and visually impaired users.
In many cases there are methods that a web developer can use if web accessibility for blind and visually impaired users is not well supported by a multimedia product. The most common work around is an audio description; although they are not ideal they do solve many of the web accessibility problems relating to multimedia for blind and visually impaired users.
This page contains links to pages that contain information about the accessibility features of multimedia products as well as how multimedia content can be made accessible to blind and visually impaired users.
The Flash page provides information about how to make Flash animations accessible. Meanwhile the audio descriptions page describes how a web developer can create an audio description should they feel that one is needed. The webcams page describes methods that a web developer can use to make either pre-recorded or live streams accessible to blind and visually impaired users.