Photo: The Jungle Garden

www.show.me.uk, the children's section of the 24 Hour Museum, and Eureka! The Museum for Children in Halifax have launched an interactive kids' website partnering Eureka's Our Global Garden exhibition.

Accessibility was a primary design concern and the Our Global Garden site has been built using a combination of HTML and Macromedia Flash MX.

The game, funded by the Clore Duffield Foundation, will pave the way for more accessible and interactive games to be made available to all children, not just those who are able-bodied.

"We felt very strongly when we started this project that this was a chance to do something really innovative and positive with access technology for the web," said 24 Hour Museum Editor, Jon Pratty.

Photo: The Jungle Garden at Eureka! The Museum for Children in Halifax © Eureka!

"In fact it's been a real learning curve, and our whole team of designers, writers and testers have found it fascinating, difficult and challenging, but ultimately rewarding. Making innovative content accessible for screenreaders with Flash MX is just the sort of thing the 24 Hour Museum, as the UK's National Virtual Museum, should be doing."

Screenreaders are programmes used by visually impaired or blind computer users where an electronic voice reads aloud what it sees on the monitor. Until now they have been unable to read Flash sites but the new Flash MX will make animated sites screenreader friendly.

Jon Harris, Technical Accessibility Manager at Macromedia UK, said, "It's great to see Macromedia Flash used on such an exciting project - it will help us show that accessible e-learning and web content can indeed include rich media. Macromedia fully supports initiatives which will enable all children to benefit from web-based learning."

Photo: Gordon Gnome Character © Collingwood O’Hare Entertainment Ltd, 2002

The site, aimed at four to seven year olds, is inspired by the real life Halifax exhibition and allows kids to explore and compare six different global environments.

Young 'global gardeners' are accompanied by Gordon the Gnome, voiced by Alan Titchmarsh, as they discover more about the world they live in and look after.

Macromedia Flash MX 2004, the latest version of the software, has enhanced its support for Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) which allows users of assistive technologies such as screenreaders to access the contents of a Macromedia Flash movie. This means that, for the first time, text elements, buttons, input text fields, movie clips, and even entire movies may be made accessible to screenreader users.

Photo: The Ice Garden

The 24 Hour Museum team, working with designer Victoria Baker, found changes in screenreader technology made the site hard to specify technically.

In addition to that conundrum, individual users of screenreader programs such as JAWS and WindowEyes often have their own custom keyboard settings to accommodate individual access requirements. This impacts on the default settings the game works on.

"I'm sure that there will be users who find their custom settings will make the site run quite differently, and we'd be very pleased to hear from readers about this," said Jon Pratty.

Photo: The Desert Garden

Projects on www.show.me.uk are selected from a diverse range of institutions reflecting the richness of the learning opportunities and great children's content being offered by the UK museum sector.

Funded by the Clore Duffield Foundation, and produced in partnership with UK museums and galleries, www.show.me.uk forms the children's section of the UK's national virtual museum, www.24hourmuseum.org.uk.

Leigh-Anne Stradeski, Eureka!'s Museum Director, said, "Following the digitisation of one of our most popular galleries, Me & My Body on the recently launched toyourhealth.org.uk website, we are delighted to see another one of our flagship galleries online. We wanted to make the gallery accessible to everybody, and are very pleased that this exciting new experience utilises the very best software to achieve this."

Photo: The Global Garden Logo

"Playful and accessible content on the web for younger screenreader users is always welcome, and we're pleased this very new and innovative use of Flash MX has been attempted. Let's hope it's just the first of many really accessible games for all our kids on the web," said Julie Howell, Digital Policy Development Officer, of the RNIB.

Enable (UK) are leading web accessibility consultants who carried out user testing of the site with blind screenreader users. Managing Director Shelley Boden said, "This site will send out a really positive message to all screenreader users, to the museum and gallery sector, and to all website developers: that with proper consideration of user needs it's possible to create an accessible Flash site."