Its benefits are easy to see: a huge amount of information can be
housed in a relatively noncommittal download, and people can load and browse the content
almost as fast as regular HTML.
The medium, even though it remains an industry standard, still has its accessibility roadblocks.
Many of these are covered in Chapter 3, but to summarize, the key to better accessibility
is providing text alternatives for multimedia content. For videos, provide closed
captions. For narrations, provide a transcript. For Flash files in general, provide HTML
alternatives in case users don??™t have the proper plug-in installed. And no matter what, provide
a link to Adobe??™s web page that allows users to download Flash Player for their
browser. Case studies are incredibly valuable marketing content, and there??™s no reason
their message should be lost because the reader lacks the technology or physical ability to
consume it.
PowerPoint, Word, and other proprietary files. Some companies choose to distribute their
customer stories (and sometimes press releases) in proprietary formats like Word and
PowerPoint. By all means, avoid this practice. There are a dozen or more reasons why, but
the only one that really matters is the fact that these are expensive, platform-dependent
applications that a very large, quantifiable segment of your audience does not have access
to.
Pages:
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372