Lightbox feature - non compliant for Accessibility

Hi Kuriko

I just tested in SL2 and it is highlighting yellow with the tab key as expected and then the enter key closes the lightbox - is that what you meant?

Hi Kuriko,

I see that the issue in SL1 is still with our QA team, and I know that accessibility is a high priority item for our team in SL2 as they look to future updates. In regards to SL1, I don't have any updates to share at this time - but it looks like Wendy was able to get this working in SL2. 

Hi Ashley

Thanks for your reply. I am very interested to know how Wendy got it working. My current project is a native SL2 file (not an upgraded SL1 file) and it is not working. As you know, setting up a lightbox is fairly straightforward - a one-step process - so I don't know how Wendy and I could have set it up differently...?

Anyhow, I'll submit a support ticket and await Wendy's reply.

Thanks again.

Hi Kuriko

I just created another sample file in SL2.  Not knowing how your project is set up I have created a simple one slide and a lightbox slide.  I use the tab key to highlight each object, when I get to the Next button and it is highlighted I hit Enter key...the lightbox slide opens, I tab and the shape is highlighted, I tab again and the X is highlighted, then I hit the Enter key, the lightbox closes and returns to slide 1.

Hi Wendy, 

I really appreciate your testing of this. Your file works just as you describe. But you will notice that once you return to Slide 1, if you click on the Next button a second time to activate the lightbox again, the X button no longer works. In the case of your file, you cannot even highlight the X, let alone click it. 

It's bizarre, isn't it?

I tested whether this has anything to do with the lightbox slide's settings and changed it to 'Reset to initial state' when revisiting. But this didn't make a difference.

I think I'll have to report this to the QA Team, seeing as accessibility is a high priority in SL2. This gives me hope that issues like these will be addressed more quickly than they are in SL1. I'll keep you posted on the response I receive.  

Hi Kuriko

you're right second round the tab key doesn't highlight the X but I can click the X to close the slide down...funky behaviour...good luck hope it's resolved soon.

Thanks Wendy for the sample - and Kuriko, if you've already connected with our Support team to share this please let me know the case number. If not, I can report to our QA team for additional review and use this example as the file to share with them. 

Another option to enable accessibility for lightboxes is to add a button on the lightboxed slide to close the lightbox. 

Thanks Ashley, if you could report this to the QA Team for SL1 and SL2, that would be greatly appreciated. It's an important issue that needs to be addressed in order for Storyline to be compliant with accessibility guidelines.

Thanks for your suggestion Steve, but I can't see a way to hide the red 'X' button that appears with the native lightbox, so I think this would look a bit awkward to have the red 'X' button which does not function as expected and then next to it have a functioning Close button. Is this what you were meaning?

There is of course the workaround to create a custom lightbox slide, as other users have suggested in other threads. But in order to have the slide content become semi-transparent in the background and have the lightbox content in front of it, I imagine I would need to add this custom lightbox as a layer onto every slide, so that you can see the current slide content in the background. Is this correct that this would be the only way to achieve this?

And even if I go to the effort of adding the custom lightbox layer onto every single slide, there doesn't appear to be a way to activate this layer from a link at the top of the player. That is what I'm using the lightbox feature for at present - a References and Help link at the top of my player.

And ever if we can get that to work, the custom lightbox slide will only ever appear in the content area of the player. It cannot fade out the entire player in the background (including the Menu/Notes tabs on the side) and appear over the top, in the same way that the native lightbox feature does. 

So there is a clear necessity for the native lightbox feature to function correctly when operating a course with a keyboard. I will keenly await any updates on this accessibility issue. 

Hi Kuriko, 

I'll share this with our QA team. Had you submitted a case with our Support engineers? I just want to make sure I close the loop on that if you did - otherwise, no need to and I can handle it from here. I'll provide any updates here once they're available but in the meantime please use the workaround of creating your own custom lightbox. 

Hi All!

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