JAWS/keyboard accessibility not working properly with latest update of 360

Jan 09, 2018

I have a training that was working fine in JAWS until I installed the latest update. Now tabbing to a button with a trigger attached to it immediately activates the trigger. So, for example, if you tab to a Next button, it will take you to the next page without the user pressing space or enter. It seems to work a lot better when published to Flash, but this seems like something that should be fixed in html5. I'm submitting a case to Articulate Support, but wanted to note it here as well in case anyone else is running into the same problem. 

17 Replies
Kristen Llobrera

Yeah, I hear you. Flash certainly wouldn't normally be our first choice either. In my case, I found that keyboard accessibility worked properly in Flash so I published Flash first. I was sending it to a blind reviewer who I knew would be using JAWS and would need to use the keyboard, so that was the highest priority for me. 

I was suggesting Flash as an option if you simply HAVE to deliver your modules before Friday and they must be 508 compliant. Then, after the update, if possible, you could update with html5 first (or only). The other option would be to uninstall the newest version and reinstall the last version. I'm pretty sure there's a way to do that.

Leslie McKerchie

Hello everyone,

Great news!  We just released another update for Articulate 360, and included a few important fixes that you'll see in the release notes here.  

The item you'll be interested in is:

We fixed several issues with triggers in HTML5 output, including on-click triggers that would automatically execute when using keyboard navigation to tab between objects, key-press triggers that wouldn't jump to the next slide when they were assigned to data-entry fields, and inconsistent hover triggers.

Just launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer and click the Update button for Storyline 360. Details here.

Please let us know if you have any questions, either here or by reaching out to our Support Engineers directly.

Greg Mellang

It appears that this issue has reappeared.  I've been publishing HTML5 only content for approximately a year without much issue, but now that content is not playing nice with JAWS.  Buttons not working, text boxes disappearing, and code or special character fragments being read in the transcript section.
As a test, I republished as Flash with HTML5 fallback in the classic player, and it fixed the issue with the text in the transcript.  I'll place it on the LMS to see if it has fixed the button issue.

I am running the most recent update on Storyline 360.  Most of the content we're having issues with go back 9-15 months, so I'm not quite certain of the version of Storyline.

Vesna Kranjec

I am facing the same issue in Storyline 3. With the last update (3.7.20003.0) lot of the objects (mainly the one triggering next slide) are not recognized in the preview mode nor in published version (HTML5) - but are recognized in the tab order window. Can you please keep me informed on the progress of the case too? Or should I log a new one for the specific case? Thanks.

Leslie McKerchie

Hello Anirudh,

Thanks for reaching out and sharing what you are experiencing in your project file.

Learners use their screen reader navigation keys (e.g., Down and Up arrows) to move through all text and interactive objects on the slide, listening to each item along the way.

You can read more about how we optimized slide navigation to make it more familiar to screen reader users:

Slide Content Is More Accessible

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