Are there any accessibility issues with adding media to the intro or title slide of a course?

Apr 19, 2024

Hi, Articulate community!

I've often heard that it's a bad practice to add narration or media to the introductory or title slides of an elearning course, due to accessibility issues.

For former teams I've worked on, I believe it was mostly related to issues with the opening slide and the ease of enabling captioning on the media player. There may have also been something with the LMSs that we were publishing to (I formerly worked on content published to Cornerstone; these days, my team uses Docebo).

Currently, the template that my team has developed and is working with have a brief intro animation with music. Additionally, we have one layout in our template that has some video on the title slide.  None of the audio or video on the title slide impacts the ability of the learner to understand the content.

In short, I wonder if there are any accessibility concerns in including media on the initial slide or title slide for an elearning course. Currently, we might have a situation where a brief intro animation triggers to advance at the end of the timeline to a title slide that may also include some video content. That title slide also includes a start button that the learner must click to start the lesson.

Does anyone see any accessibility concerns here?  Thanks in advance for any advice!

1 Reply
Jose Tansengco

Hello Monique,

Happy to help!

When placing media files in Storyline 360 courses, we recommend preventing the media files from automatically playing. People using screen readers navigate by listening and having media files play without being prompted might make navigation less accessible for the learners. 

Check out our guide here on designing accessible courses in Storyline 360 for more accessibility tips!