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Tactile map. Can an accessible Web site include multimedia? Yes. In fact, multimedia can be a great enhancement to any site, and it improves comprehension, particularly when it comes to complex material. People learn in a variety of ways: by reading, by hearing, by writing, by seeing, and by doing. If you are presenting a complex concept, a page of text with illustrations and a video or audio tutorial is better than a page that only has text.
The mistake that many people make when designing accessible Web pages is to design specifically for users of screen readers. In doing so, they remove nearly all graphics on their pages, thus designing text-only pages. It is important to remember that visitors to your Web site may be blind, but they may also be Deaf, or they may have a motor or cognitive disability. Designing solely for screen reader access does not necessarily make your page accessible to these other individuals. And, it can result in a very boring page for sighted users.
The key to using multimedia is to ensure that, above all, it is supplemental to the main content on your page. A page that offers only multimedia, even if that multimedia is made accessible, still requires your visitor to have a browser plug-in. Presenting information within the text of your page is natively accessible to anyone with a Web browser. But, plug-ins are a browser accessory. You cannot control whether the visitor to your Web site has the type of plug-in needed to view your content, and they may not have the correct version. Because of this, the information to your site may not be directly accessible to some users.
When choosing and creating your multimedia, your goal should be to make your content as universally accessible as possible. To do this, remember these overall guidelines:
