JAWS not reading full content of Storyline output

Oct 27, 2017

We had placed text of around 200 hundred words on a screen but JAWS read around 152 words and stopped. Same even if the text is placed in Notes section. We tried to find solution on this within JAWS but could not find any as we were not certain if there was any character/word limit. Is there a solution where the whole content is read?

22 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi LearningMate, 

What version of Storyline and JAWS are you using? JAWS only supports the latest version (which I believe is JAWS 18) and viewing the content in the latest version of Internet Explorer. 

Also, it should be able to read all the text on a slide as long as you've set that box as visible to accessibility tools (a setting in the Size/Position options). 

I haven't heard of a character count that JAWS will stop at - but have you tried breaking the text up into individual boxes and tabbing between those to see if JAWs reads it? 

Malkeet Singh

Hi Team,

I am also facing the same issue here.

Just wanted to confirm if any one of you have faced the issues below.

"Jaws read the text completely if the content is less the 1024 characters, how ever if it is beyond that limit jaws stops reading abruptly in between at any point of time, ones we click any where on the page it starts reading again and it read the complete text this time. "

I am facing the same Issue with the integrated Web objects as well.

Please share you view on this.

Bob O'Donnell

One of our testers just documented the same issue. She can't get JAWS to continue reading the text. Not sure what your statement refers to for "clicking", this should be a keyboard accessible test. My guess is we may need to break the content up in order to make it work.

In our case, we have descriptive screen text that the user can access to fulfill Section 508. I don't recall this JAWS issue coming up in any previous testing.

Leslie McKerchie

Hi Malkeet,

Thanks for reaching out and sharing what you are running into. This is a bit different than what we were seeing before.

With your permission, I'd like you to share your project file with our support engineers to investigate what's happening. You can share it privately by uploading it here. It will be deleted when troubleshooting is complete.

Katie Riggio

Hi there, everyone!

Thank you all for continuing to share the crucial need for creating accessible content for all learners. While there is more to do, we're at a point where we're confident the work done so far delivers meaningful real-world improvements for learners with accessibility needs.

Below, you'll find all the details on what this means for Storyline 360, Update 36:

Be sure to also check out these general FAQs on accessibility in Articulate 360 tools!

This release makes it significantly easier for those users to perceive, operate, and understand content published with Storyline—all while opening up more browser, assistive technology, and device choices for the first time. Learners will benefit from the vast majority of these improvements, even when the course author is not designing their course for accessibility. 

If there's anything we can help answer, please let us know. We know there is more work to do, so we'll continue to keep you in the know on this topic!

Lauren Connelly

Hi Zain!

It looks like Rajeev is suggesting that we change the labels on our end.

Have you tried changing the settings in JAWS to read more than 250 characters? By default, JAWS will only read a certain number of characters. 

Here's where you can change that:

Let me know if you have any questions!

Janet Guastavino

Hi, I am running the most current version of Chrome, Articulate Storyline 360, and JAWS, but the only text JAWS will read in my Storyline files are the instructions in text input boxes. It also reads the slide names. That's it. What do I need to do to get JAWS to start reading all slide text content?

Maria Costa-Stienstra

Hi, Janet.

Thank you for sharing the .story file!

When using a screen reader, you can tab to interactive elements like buttons, hotspots, text entry fields, etc., and use the up/down arrows on your keyboard for non-interactive items.

I published your file for Web and tested it using Chrome with both JAWS and NVDA, and I was able to hear all the content.

I did notice that your focus order has the on-screen text lower than other objects. For example, on the slide below, "Topic 1" is 8th on the list:

Windows 10 (1) 2022-07-18 at 3.58.20 PM

Let me know if this is not what you're experiencing!

Jose Tansengco

Hello Ashutosh, 

Storyline 360 is fully compatible with both Firefox and JAWS as long as you have recent versions of the applications installed. You can check out the System Requirements to run Storyline 360 here. 

Regarding the behavior you're encountering, can you provide us with more details on what's happening? What works in Chrome for your course that does not when Firefox is used? 

Additionally, would you be willing to upload a copy of your project file here or in private by opening a support case so we can test it to figure out what's happening?