Why applications make noise
The primary uses of sound in applications can be placed into three categories:
- Decoration
- Alert to information on the screen
- Alert to information not on the screen
An example of sound as decoration would be background music that plays while an application is open. This use of sound doesn't affect accessibility, as long as it doesn't interfere with the alert sounds or screen readers.
An alert to information on the screen would be sounding a beep to draw the user's attention to a visual error message. An example of an alert to information not on the screen would be the beep that sounds when the user clicks an inactive area of the application.
When is sound a factor?
Sound can be a great benefit for people who are blind or have low vision. Sounds provide an indication that something has happened on the screen that requires attention. On the other hand, sound is of no benefit at all to someone who is deaf or hard of hearing. Even for users who don't have disabilities, there are times when they can't hear or don't want to hear sounds. If you're working in a factory, you probably won't hear much coming from the computer. If you're in a library, you don't want your computer beeping and talking. All these situations point out the need for visual cues to work in conjunction with sounds to inform the user of anything important going on in an application.
Audio and visual cues together
The number one rule in using sound in your application is to never use sound as the only means of communicating important information. You don't have to give visual indications of every sound all the time, but it should at least be an option. You could put a menu option in your applications that turns sounds within the application on or off, or an option to set whether visual cues will be displayed in conjunction with sounds.
When you supply a visual indication of a sound, make sure it's noticeable. One option is to use the FlashWindow function, explained later in this chapter. While FlashWindow is designed to provide a quick visual cue that something has happened, you might also want to consider using a visual indicator that remains on the screen for a certain amount of time or until the user dismisses it so that you're more likely to get their attention.
Closed captioning
I'm not going to go into the details of adding multimedia elements to your application. But if you do display audio/visual clips in your application, you should provide closed captioning. Closed captioning is the displaying of dialogue and sound effects in an audio clip as text on the screen, similar to subtitles. Microsoft has just developed a new technology called Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange (SAMI) format, designed specifically to provide closed captioning to multimedia software and Web applications. SAMI will be included as part of the Microsoft NetShow 3.0 (which replaces NetShow, DirectShow, and ActiveMovie) media player. You can also use the ShowSounds Accessibility option, described later, to determine whether you should turn on closed captioning.