The issue stems from how Flash is referenced within a web page. Traditionally Flash was detected by HTML using either <embed> or <object> tags, however both tags have accessibility and plug-in detection issues, and <embed> is invalid XHTML. These methods can cause some browsers and screen readers to misinterpret or entirely ignore your Flash content.

My favorite solution to this problem has been Bobby van der Sluis’ Unobtrusive Flash Object (UFO), but it was recently deprecated and replaced by Geoff Stearns’ SWFObject 2.0. Like UFO, SWFObject is a DOM script that detects the Flash plug-in and embeds Flash objects. It’s JavaScript API provides an amazing and complete toolset for embedding SWF files and retrieving Flash Player-related information. It has its roots in the web standards community and is designed to support W3C standards-compliant, accessible and search engine friendly web design. The handy JavaScript detection determines whether Flash content or alternative content should be shown and avoids outdated Flash plug-ins break Flash content. The example below illustrates how simple it is to detecting Flash and add alternative content.

Tantek Çelik (Chief Technologist at Technorati) moderated The Growth and Evolution of Microformats. Microformats are a set of simple, open data formats that standardize the meaning of HTML content. Examples of content that can be used with Microformats include people, organizations, events, addresses and more. Many sites including Google, Upcoming, and Flickr are using microformats, and both Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 8 will have built-in microformat readers. Until then, microformats can be read through the Operator and Tails Firefox extensions.

Formatting Your Data

Let’s use my contact information as an example where we will use the hCard format (a microformat that represents people, companies, organizations, and places). On my contact page, I posted my name and contact information. If this information is relevant to a user, they may copy it—line by line—to a contact list in Outlook, iCal, or a mobile device. By adding an hCard, this process is automated. The code looks like this:

The result can be formatted in HTML like this:

Your contact information can also be formatted as a downloadable hCard
through the Technorati Contacts Feed Service.

This looks nice, but what good does it do? Aside from exporting the data to desktop applications, mobile phone browsers visiting this site can place a call to me directly from my microformatted content.

Additional Resources

Check out the Dreamweaver microformat extension and microformats.org help creating your own microformats.