Focus order layers

Oct 13, 2021

Hello, I have a question regarding focus order. I have a couple of layers on every slide in my project but I want to set a focus order on every layer. As it is now the focus order picks every item and object in the whole slide.

Is it possible to set the focus order for every specific layer?

Thank you

13 Replies
Katie Riggio

Hello, Jesper! That's an excellent question. 

As you note, all objects for a slide appear in the Focus Order window—including objects from layers. In other words, the focus order you set is for a slide and its layers. The default focus order is left to right and top to bottom, and you can customize it at any time. Here's how.

And to ensure learners only interact with the objects in a layer, mark the box to Prevent the user from clicking on the base layer.

Slide Layer Properties window

If you need to have a different focus order for each layer, one option is to copy/paste the content in your layers into individual slides.

Let me know if you have any more questions!

Jen Thuelin

Hello, I am having trouble with figuring out the focus when there are several layers involved. I have reordered so many times, but I can't figure out why it's not following the order. I would like where the focus order goes top to bottom and then again top to bottom. When using tab, it goes left to right and then it goes right to left. Any help is appreciated! 

Dorothy Miller

Hi

I have come across this issue a few times now, and would like to understand if it is possible to have a focus order for each layer that is different, instead of all the objects being on the slide focus order?

I am already following the suggestion of creating slides instead of layers which does work but it would be good if the layers could work in a similar way with focus order.

Thanks.

Dorothy

Pierre Sosa

The focus order menu will show you all of the items available on the slide, but the screen reader will only read what is on the slide at a given moment.

You'll want to think of it in an outline view.

  1. Base Title
  2. Base Item
  3. Base Button to Layer A
    • Layer A Title
    • Layer A Item
  4. Base Button to Layer B
    • Layer B Title
    • Layber B Item
  5. Etc...

But if you have your layers set up to "hide other layers", and you are on Layer B, the read order will skip all of the Layer A items. In my outline example, you would jump from #3 to #4 to #4.Bullets.

Your screen reader will also find and read the closed captions if those are on screen when you screen-read-navigate your slide. You'll notice that it will only read the caption on screen at that time, and if you navigate off the CC and back on, it will read "current" text.

You'll want to be very careful about text that ends before the timeline ends, as the screen reader won't find these once they disappear. If you animate them off screen but they still "show to the end", the screen reader will find them even if they aren't on screen. but if their timeline ends, they will get missed if the user is poking around the slide after the timeline ends.

Ellen Slavitz

In a course I'm updating for accessibility (not mine), I'm trying to set the focus order on a slide with separate layers for each of 8 quiz questions, with 10-12 objects on each layer, some of which are the same (title, instructions, etc.). Since there is only one focus order for the entire slide, that means setting the order for nearly 100 objects. To do that I need to see which object on which layer I'm selecting (i.e. via the red selection box).

Am I correct that although Focus Order shows the order for all layers, I can only view my object selections on one layer at a time?  So, I have to select a layer, go to Focus Order, set the order for that layer, save it, select the next layer, go to Focus Order, etc.? Or am I missing something? 

Putting the layers in the correct order helped, but still seems like there should be an easier way of doing this.

Jen Thuelin

Apologies for the late response. Yes, I had watched a tutorial (I can't remember where) and was able to resolve. I had a slide that had 7-8 layers and it was time consuming. I wish each layer had a way to see the individual focus order. Seeing all of the orders in one window was overwhelming as each layer plus the main one had many, text boxes/buttons/audio etc. I'm sure there's a use case to see all of the focus order in one shot, but it would be nice to have a toggle where you can decide between seeing all of the focus order for the slide, or being able to see the focus order per layer.