508 compliance question
Dec 10, 2020
By
megan jonas
I have a client that is complaining about the tabbing order of the player controls. She says the default order is not intuitive and wants the focus order to 'read' from left to right. Is there anyway to either change the focus order of the navigation items on the player OR move the navigation items on the player (in SL 360 in either player) to accommodate her?
I don't think there is but want confirmation before talking with the client.
Also, has anyone else had issues with unhappy clients in this area? And, has anyone chosen to use Captivate (yuck, no offense Adobe) instead for this reason?
Thanks everyone!
5 Replies
I don't know of any way to change the tab order of player elements. However, I would recommend against captivate for accessibility reasons. Captivate does not allow the same kind of control over tab order of interactive slide objects, and reads things on the slide 'from left to right and slightly up' which results in a lot of funkiness.
Was the course published in a recent update? The SL updates from the first half of 2020 made a lot of accessibility improvements, including a better 'skip to main content' link when tabbing. If your course was published in an older SL version, the first thing I would do is republish from an updated version and see what the client thinks about that.
Thanks Sally, I appreciate the heads up on Cap and accessibility. No course built yet, just a quick prototype last week and that was made with the most recent version of SL.
They just aren't happy with the tabbing on navigation controls 'reading' from right to left. They expect it to go from left to right instead. Personally, I think the way it works now makes sense since the next button is the first in the cycle.
:)
Is the tester an end user with the disability concerned (vision loss and/or fine motor control)? If not, I'd probably make the argument that how it is with the next button being the first option is best, because it eliminates excess tabbing by having the most frequent use button first. (ETA: If they are an end user with access needs, then I'd defer to them what is best).
Another option would be to remove the navigational controls from the player, and build in navigation buttons in your slides, which you could then set in the slide tab order.
There is a specialist on their side. Decided to push back on this client request at next week's meeting. Will advocate for keeping template/prototype as is, using modern player. Thanks for brainstorming with me Sally, I appreciate it :)
My course tester is blind, and he would also prefer the player buttons be in a different order. So for example, the first player button should be "Next," Then "Prev," then "Volume."