We have created Storyline content but need to have this accessible to students with learning disabilities. Many of these students have dyslexia and use text-to-speech software such as the NaturalReader floating bar or the speech feature of the MAC. I find that I am unable to select text, which is required for this software to work.
Am I missing something in the publishing/creating of our content that would provide this capability? How have others worked to make their Storyline content accessible to these screen readers?
Thank you for the links. I had consulted those previously. I am also aware of the capability of tabbing from one section to the next on a slide and see how that works. But one can't select text in any of the sections.
The image in the "Accessibility and Storyline" link has an image of what JAWS will read and that shows just the notes section. Is this capability limited to the notes section? Is there anything additional I need to do to allow the text in other sections in the main slide to be read by a screen reader as is illustrated for JAWS?
JAWS should read the text on the slide as it is - but there isn't a way to select the text, as in highlighting it to copy or use it outside of Storyline's published output as it's embedded on the slide itself. The image was showing how that JAWS will read what it has selected with the yellow focus, so if on a text box on your slide - it should read that and you may also want to look at adding in additional Alt text if your screen recorder is not picking it up from the text box alone.
This makes sense because JAWS has what is called Convenient OCR, which will automatically try to OCR an image it encounters. This is image-to-speech, it includes the intermediate OCR layer to extract text. Free screen reader applications, like the free floating toolbar for Natural Reader or the built-in text-to-speech capability on a MAC, do not have that intermediate processing/OCR capability.
This is very helpful because I now know I will need to have a program that does this "convenient" OCR available to make our Storyline tutorials accessible for students.
Please correct me if I am wrong in my understanding.
You sound like more of an accessibility expert than I am, which isn't hard as I'm only versed in the Articulate software capabilities per the documentation shared previously. Have you looked at adding alt text to the text boxes to see if the other screen readers are able to pick that up?
I am trying a few things and I will also try the alt text. I will post when I find a solution. I am sure others in the community will be interested in what I discover. I have found that NVDA, a free alternative to JAWS, now also has similar OCR capabilities and might function similar to JAWS.
Hey Ashley and Articulate Community! I was wondering about the 508 requirements... Do you have to provide a text-only equivalent for every course you create in Storyline for it to meet the requirement in 1194.22(k):
“A text-only page, with equivalent information or functionality, shall be provided to make a web site comply with the provisions of this part, when compliance cannot be accomplished in any other way. The content of the text-only page shall be updated whenever the primary page changes.”
Great question - but I'll defer to the community on the specifics of this, but based on the way I read that section I'd say you only have to have the text only page if the rest of the course page doesn't comply with accessibility standards.
I'm by no means an expert, but I do know that in testing NVDA and Jaws you don't always get the same results for different eLearning courses. Even though both use information from the OS's accessibility layer, like different browsers, their results can vary some - so you will want to test your courses with both (if your end users use both) to be safe.
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Hi, Terry -- Thanks so much for your question! While I am not an expert on 508 Compliance, I wanted to share information on a few different threads that may be of assistance, including this General Info on Storyline and Section 508 Accessibility, as well as this eBook on 6 Best Practices for Designing Accessible E-Learning, and Accessibility and Storyline.
And perhaps others who have experience using NaturalReader will be able to comment as well with their thoughts and advice!
Here are some more best practices that might be helpful
http://feedback.dominknow.com/knowledgebase/articles/4781-best-practices-for-accessibility-section-508
Christine,
Thank you for the links. I had consulted those previously. I am also aware of the capability of tabbing from one section to the next on a slide and see how that works. But one can't select text in any of the sections.
The image in the "Accessibility and Storyline" link has an image of what JAWS will read and that shows just the notes section. Is this capability limited to the notes section? Is there anything additional I need to do to allow the text in other sections in the main slide to be read by a screen reader as is illustrated for JAWS?
Terry
Hi Terry,
JAWS should read the text on the slide as it is - but there isn't a way to select the text, as in highlighting it to copy or use it outside of Storyline's published output as it's embedded on the slide itself. The image was showing how that JAWS will read what it has selected with the yellow focus, so if on a text box on your slide - it should read that and you may also want to look at adding in additional Alt text if your screen recorder is not picking it up from the text box alone.
Ashley,
This makes sense because JAWS has what is called Convenient OCR, which will automatically try to OCR an image it encounters. This is image-to-speech, it includes the intermediate OCR layer to extract text. Free screen reader applications, like the free floating toolbar for Natural Reader or the built-in text-to-speech capability on a MAC, do not have that intermediate processing/OCR capability.
This is very helpful because I now know I will need to have a program that does this "convenient" OCR available to make our Storyline tutorials accessible for students.
Please correct me if I am wrong in my understanding.
Terry
Hi Terry,
You sound like more of an accessibility expert than I am, which isn't hard as I'm only versed in the Articulate software capabilities per the documentation shared previously. Have you looked at adding alt text to the text boxes to see if the other screen readers are able to pick that up?
I am trying a few things and I will also try the alt text. I will post when I find a solution. I am sure others in the community will be interested in what I discover. I have found that NVDA, a free alternative to JAWS, now also has similar OCR capabilities and might function similar to JAWS.
Terry
Absolutely Terry, please keep us posted on what you find out and other tools to utilize for accessibility.
Hey Ashley and Articulate Community! I was wondering about the 508 requirements... Do you have to provide a text-only equivalent for every course you create in Storyline for it to meet the requirement in 1194.22(k):
“A text-only page, with equivalent information or functionality, shall be provided to make a web site comply with the provisions of this part, when compliance cannot be accomplished in any other way. The content of the text-only page shall be updated whenever the primary page changes.”
Hi David,
Great question - but I'll defer to the community on the specifics of this, but based on the way I read that section I'd say you only have to have the text only page if the rest of the course page doesn't comply with accessibility standards.
I'm by no means an expert, but I do know that in testing NVDA and Jaws you don't always get the same results for different eLearning courses. Even though both use information from the OS's accessibility layer, like different browsers, their results can vary some - so you will want to test your courses with both (if your end users use both) to be safe.
Thanks Paul for sharing that here - and it's a good reminder for testing in accessibility.
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