Coming Soon to Storyline 3: More Accessibility Features and Enhancements

Mar 23, 2021

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard
By Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hey, Storyline 3 users! We’ve been working hard behind the scenes on some accessibility features and enhancements to empower you to provide great learning experiences to all your learners. As we get closer to the finish line, we thought we’d give you a sneak peek at how these updates will impact you and your learners.

Navigate text content more easily

The first new feature to look out for is text styles. With text styles, your text will not only have a more cohesive design, it’ll be easier for screen readers to parse and navigate thanks to semantic formatting. 

But what is semantic formatting? Simply put, people using assistive technologies, such as screen readers, rely on a website’s semantic formatting (aka its source code) to paint a mental picture of the content that sighted users get by visually scanning the page. 

The same applies to e-learning. That’s why we’re updating Storyline 3 to ensure it publishes your courses with the appropriate semantic formatting for headings, links, lists, and other elements. 

To see how this works, check out the GIF below: 

Make text easier to read

We’ve also been working on a feature called accessible text that will give learners the power to change the visual appearance of text in your published courses to make it easier to read.

Want to see accessible text in action? View the GIF below:  

Use the player more easily

We’ve also been working on making the course player easier to navigate. In the updated version, you’ll notice that we’ve switched up the button order to mirror other web experiences and added keyboard shortcuts.

Here’s another GIF to give you a better sense of how this works:

Adjust accessibility settings

We’ll also be adding a new accessibility settings button to the player so learners can turn accessible text on or off and toggle keyboard shortcuts.

You can see these new controls in action below. 

We’re so grateful to have you with us on this accessibility journey. We look forward to delivering more features that empower you and your learners—and make everyone’s lives a little easier.

Want to test out these new accessibility features, but don’t have Storyline 3? Download a free 30-day trial right here. Or you can try Articulate 360, which includes Storyline 360—the latest version of Storyline with continuously updated new features, including everything mentioned above. 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.

10 Replies
Kirk Hine
3 years ago03/23/21 at 5:17 pm (UTC)

Hello Ashley,

I am assuming that registered users of SL3 simply need to "Check for updates" in order to have the enhancements installed. Is that correct? Other than the enhanced accessibility features, are there other substantive improvements and enhancements in this latest version, and if so, will you be publishing a complete list of those on this community site?

This is an update to Update 11: 3.11.23355.0, correct?

Mike Mills
3 years ago03/23/21 at 5:32 pm (UTC)

I completely agree with Russ, thanks for continuing to maintain and improve SL3.  Incidentally, we are still running Update 9: 3.9.21069.0

Newer versions broke scaling in our LMS system.  We launch our courses in the same window (versus a new window) and none of the player buttons were shown on screen.  Going back to the version mentioned above fixed the problem.

Any idea of this has been fixed in version being released soon?

Stephanie Savely
3 years ago03/31/21 at 2:51 pm (UTC)

Hi Ashley - thanks so much for the accessibility updates and the detailed VPAT!

I'm updating a series of courses with the modern player and accessibility text. On the 5th one, when Accessibility Text is turned on, the on screen buttons just disappear. All of the courses were designed in the same way. Thoughts?

Lauren Connelly
3 years ago04/02/21 at 6:10 pm (UTC)

Hi everyone!

I appreciate everyone's feedback! We will be releasing Storyline 3 Update 12 very soon. 

Mike, are you seeing the Player dialogue box cut off when using the Classic Player and a custom Story Size? If so, yes, this bug will be addressed in update 12.

Stephanie, I can't pinpoint why the buttons would disappear. I'd recommend sharing your project with our team in a support case.

Laura, we don't currently offer a way to control how much zoom the zoom to fit feature does. I'll share this feedback with my team.

Joe Alen
3 years ago04/05/21 at 5:33 am (UTC)

Howdy,

As a normal StoryLine client since SL previously came out, I truly value Articulate not neglecting or thoroughly overlooking us StoryLine 3 clients. A debt of gratitude is in order for the updates. Ideally there will be all the more with the goal that we can keep utilizing this fine elearning advancement apparatus for quite a while yet.

Much obliged,

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