It's been a while since I used a course menu, but I swear this used to work. When I'm not running JAWS, I can TAB to the menu and navigate through the items using the arrow keys. When JAWS (2018 or 2021) is turned on, though, the arrow keys do not do anything.
Great question! The Menu button on the player opens a list of Menu items. You'll want to tab to the first item in the Menu and then use the up/down arrows to navigate through the list of slides. Here's a quick demo of what to expect.
I was still having problems until a user in a different discussion thread suggested I use SHIFT-Space when selecting the menu and that seemed to work. Mark Klosowski mentioned that my problem might be related to having menu items from different scenes in my menu and filed a bug report.
It sounds like you had some questions about navigating through course elements while using the JAWS screen reader. I'd be happy to share some insight on that!
Just to clarify, you are trying to escape from the Menu button and select other elements from the course player? If so, the best option for that would be using the Tab key. Clicking the Tab key once moves the learner forward through interactive elements on the screen, and holding Shift + Tab moves them back to the previous element.
Also, could you confirm which version of JAWS you are currently using? Testing this out on my end (with JAWS 2023) I was able to easily navigate away from the Menu button, to my list of slides, and then back. Here's a quick peek showing my results!
Hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any more questions!
Thanks Steven! I am not a JAWS user, so have to do a bit of a back-and-fourth with a JAWS tester. They use JAWS 2023. So, from my understanding, here's how it looks like for a JAWS user: they will tab to the menu, use arrow keys to enter the list of slides. Then they should... Tab again to go back to the slide or use Enter to pick another slide in the menu to access it? Is that correct?
You're welcome! I'm glad to hear your learners are using the most up-to-date version of JAWS!
To confirm the type of interaction a learner can expect when using JAWS 2023:
Once the Tab key has been used to highlight the Menu button, click Tab again to navigate to the first slide listed in the focus order. If the list of slides is minimized, they would need to click Enter first in order to expand it.
From there, the learner can navigate through the list of slides by using the Up and DownArrow keys. To view a specific slide, click Enter once it's highlighted.
The learner would then navigate through the interactive elements of the slide by using the Tab key. When finished viewing a slide and highlighting the Nextbutton - pressing Enter will automatically move them to the next slide in the focus order. If they click Tab instead, they will be brought back to the top of the Menu list and can select a slide of their choosing.
*Additionally, if the learner ever wanted to move backward through interactive elements on a particular slide, they can do so by clicking Shift + Enter*.
Hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any more questions!
6 Replies
Hi Erich!
Great question! The Menu button on the player opens a list of Menu items. You'll want to tab to the first item in the Menu and then use the up/down arrows to navigate through the list of slides. Here's a quick demo of what to expect.
Thanks for the response, Lauren.
I'll share that I'm using a drop-down menu and the classic player: https://360.articulate.com/review/content/fd8ee051-7792-41b4-a8b8-3260f9cd7cce/review. That functions a bit different than the persistent menu in the modern player you demonstrated. My fault for not specifying my environment.
I was still having problems until a user in a different discussion thread suggested I use SHIFT-Space when selecting the menu and that seemed to work. Mark Klosowski mentioned that my problem might be related to having menu items from different scenes in my menu and filed a bug report.
Hope this can help someone else.
Hi! How does a JAWS user escape from the menu?
Hi Darya!
It sounds like you had some questions about navigating through course elements while using the JAWS screen reader. I'd be happy to share some insight on that!
Just to clarify, you are trying to escape from the Menu button and select other elements from the course player? If so, the best option for that would be using the Tab key. Clicking the Tab key once moves the learner forward through interactive elements on the screen, and holding Shift + Tab moves them back to the previous element.
Also, could you confirm which version of JAWS you are currently using? Testing this out on my end (with JAWS 2023) I was able to easily navigate away from the Menu button, to my list of slides, and then back. Here's a quick peek showing my results!
Hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any more questions!
Thanks Steven! I am not a JAWS user, so have to do a bit of a back-and-fourth with a JAWS tester. They use JAWS 2023. So, from my understanding, here's how it looks like for a JAWS user: they will tab to the menu, use arrow keys to enter the list of slides. Then they should... Tab again to go back to the slide or use Enter to pick another slide in the menu to access it? Is that correct?
Hi Darya!
You're welcome! I'm glad to hear your learners are using the most up-to-date version of JAWS!
To confirm the type of interaction a learner can expect when using JAWS 2023:
From there, the learner can navigate through the list of slides by using the Up and Down Arrow keys. To view a specific slide, click Enter once it's highlighted.
The learner would then navigate through the interactive elements of the slide by using the Tab key. When finished viewing a slide and highlighting the Next button - pressing Enter will automatically move them to the next slide in the focus order. If they click Tab instead, they will be brought back to the top of the Menu list and can select a slide of their choosing.
*Additionally, if the learner ever wanted to move backward through interactive elements on a particular slide, they can do so by clicking Shift + Enter*.
Hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any more questions!