“Flash sites are not accessible or section 508 compliant”

This statement that isn’t entirely accurate. It is true that there are many examples of Flash being used in inaccessible ways, just as there are many examples of any technology being used in inaccessible ways. Unfortunately the current Adobe Open Gov site is an example of a site that is not fully accessible – I recently wrote about this on the Adobe Accessibility blog at http://blogs.adobe.com/accessibility/2009/11/accessibility_and_adobe_open_g.html – but it is being worked on currently and a new version is coming in the near future. However, Flash can be used accessibly and you can meet Section 508 standards and even standards that are more strict while using Flash.

I encourage you and your readers to take a look at the resources we have at Adobe’s Accessibility Resource Center and check out a couple of samples of Flash that have been made accessible.

Adobe Accessibility Resource Center: http://www.adobe.com/accessibility
Accessible Video demo: http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/accessiblevideo
Accessible Flash tutorial: http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/products/flash/tutorial/
Example of Flash at ed.gov: http://federalstudentaid.ed.gov/mystory/index.html

Andrew Kirkpatrick
Senior Product Manager, Accessibility
Adobe Systems

It seems like Adobe has shown a significant amount of progress in accessibility with the latest version of Flash. You can find more about their efforts with accessibility here: http://www.adobe.com/accessibility/