3 Insights About How Rise 360 Courses Work with Screen Readers

On the whole, screen readers interact with Rise 360 courses the same way they do websites. However, if you’re not familiar with that experience, knowing that isn’t very helpful! In this article, we’ll walk you through some key things to know about the screen reader experience, so you know what to expect.

1. Screen readers start announcing Rise 360 course content automatically. 

When you open your Rise 360 course with your screen reader activated, it’ll automatically start reading your content aloud. 

2. Screen readers often stop announcing content after a certain number of characters. 

Some screen readers (like NVDA and JAWS) stop reading after a certain number of characters (for example, 100 or 150). This is true for all types of content—not just content built in Rise 360.

If you’d like your screen reader to continue reading, press the down arrow on your keyboard. You can also customize this setting. To find out how to do that, refer to your screen reader’s user guide.

3. Screen readers announce content from left to right and top to bottom.

Just like they do with websites, screen readers read your Rise 360 content from left to right and top to bottom. This happens automatically—so you don’t have to do anything to make it work! Let’s look at an example:

Screenshot of Lesson	Screen Reader Announcement Order
	Lesson number Lesson title Author name Course content Note that since it’s decorative, I deliberately hid the image from the screen reader by putting two quotes ("") in the alt text field. That way, the screen reader skips over it. If I hadn’t done that, the screen reader would have read the image name or alt text before the course content.
View interactive version.

More Resources

Hopefully these insights will help prepare you for testing your Rise 360 courses with screen readers. But if you feel like you need more information before you get started, check out these helpful resources: 

• Accessible E-Learning & Screen Readers: What You Need to Know
• How to Test Your E-Learning Course with a Screen Reader
• 9 Basic Screen Reader Commands to Know When Testing Your E-Learning Courses
• A Checklist for QA Testing Courses with a Screen Reader

Want to create courses that work with screen readers, but don’t have Articulate 360? Start a free 30-day trial, and come back to E-Learning Heroes regularly for more helpful advice on everything related to e-learning. If you have any questions, please share them in the comments.