I'm trying to make my course accessible to learners using keyboard keys to navigate the course. For example, press N for next slide but it doesn't appear to work in Storyline 3. I have used these triggers before in Storyline 2 which works fine.
I concur with James! If we could see a sample slide or two, that would give us a better idea of what you're looking to do and nail down why it isn't working for you.
I have attached a file I created where I attempted to use shortcut keys to advance the slides and answer a yes no question but could not get them to work. These shortcut keys were in addition to mouse controls which I got to work. I am a new Storyline user. I am trying to convert many presentations from Presenter to Storyline so that they will be accessible. Screen reader users and mobility impaired users need shortcut keys to advance slides. Please tell me what I did wrong so we can all learn!
Hi Steve. Your file works for me. You'll want to take care not to use keys that are already used by the screen reader. JAWS, for example, uses a lot of keys. One way to find out what the screen reader user prefers is to ask them. I know the down arrow is something that many JAWS readers use to advance through the DOM. Using this as a hotkey will prevent JAWS users from hearing any of the content on the screen. The screen reader will only read items that are tabbed to using the tab key or ALT-tab. Since the screen reader user will be using their tab key to cycle through the items on the screen anyway, extra shortcut keys might be unnecessary. Strategic use of tab order to make the experience as frustration free as possible becomes important:)
For mobility impaired users, the same recommendation applies. Lots of folks with mobility challenges will appreciate shortcut keys. I like them too. The barrier becomes accounting for the shortcut keys that might be reserved for other uses (JAWS reader). In some cases, I've resorted to using key combinations. However, the tab key suffices in a lot of cases for mobility impaired users since the content is accessible. As with vision impaired users, tab order is key.
Thanks Steve. I have an email into a screen reader user and will post her suggestions as soon as I receive them. At this point I am trying different keys to see if I can get something to work. Some slides did not work for me when I used arrow keys but when I changed the arrow keys to letter keys in the above example, I was able to get all of my slides to follow the command. I assume choice of keys will affect reliability. Also there seemed to be inconsistency in whether the command was listed as a "player" or "slide" command but it worked either way in my test program. However, when I tried the Y and N keys to branch (the same key trigger commands that I used in my test program) in my more complicated actual presentation- they did not work. I will focus on the tab sequence as you suggested as that seemed pretty reliable. It would be nice to be able to pause the narration with a shortcut key so a screen reader user could then scan the slide by tabbing before the slide automatically advances but I couldn't get that to work either.
Hi Steve W.! I just want to share a little heads up with you. We have an issue in Storyline 3 when navigating to a slide from the Player (Next button or Menu, for example) where the keypress triggers won't work unless you click on the slide or tab into the slide first. The focus stays on the player rather than the slide when you navigate this way.
I'll keep this discussion updated with any changes to that behavior, but I wanted to let you know in case you were seeing inconsistency with those keypress triggers.
JAWS compatible shortcut keyboard keys. This is from an excellent source, Glenda, but I have not tested this yet.
Does any one know a shortcut to assign slide controls to all of the slides or do I need to go through these slides one by one.
Here is her email to me.
Hi Steve,
I checked several programs to see if there are keys that consistently are not used by JAWS. I found a bunch that seem to always be free. Then isolated them down to ones that are grouped together.
So, to do the things you want them to be able to do, try setting these as the commands:
Forward = insert + l back = insert + k Next = insert + ; pause/ play the narration = insert +p
That last one is used in windows media player so that should be a familiar keystroke for JAWS Users. But, if you are concerned of a conflict, which there shouldn’t be when their system is focus on your program, then instead of insert + p use insert + ‘
JAWS use the insert key in most of its commands so using it for those keys would not be so weird for those users.
As a caveat, stay away from the caps lock key, that is used by Fusion which is Zoomtext with JAWS.
I should have checked before I posted. Storyline did not allow me to use insert with a letter. I checked with Glenda Such and while slides are playing you can use any key by itself without interfering with JAWS. I tried the S key to start and P key to pause and it worked just fine as long as I had tabbed to slide content.
OK I use P to pause narration and R to resume in slide controls and have added these controls to my templates. They seem to work with Windows Narrator as well. Is there some way I can apply a template or otherwise avoid adding the pause and resume controls to each slide when I import slides from Presenter? I'm converting hundreds of slides to meet accessibility requirements- it would help. Can you suggest any work around for the problem with tab order reversing when text is animated by paragraph?
Hi Steve. The tabbing issue with text boxes that are animated by paragraph is a bug that we're investigating. I'm sorry I don't have a workaround, other than having individual text boxes for each "paragraph." I'll keep you updated on the bug.
It sounds like you'd like to eliminate the play/pause button on the Player. In Storyline 3, that function is connected to the seekbar. If you don't need the seekbar, open the Player Properties window and deselect the seekbar. Then, to make sure it still isn't showing up in slides unwanted, you can set the properties of multiple slides at once in Story View:
We just released Storyline 3 Update 10 (Build 3.10.22406.0) today, which includes the fix for the bug where tabbing through text boxes was out of order with animation!
12 Replies
Any chance you can upload an example?
This method works fine when I try it.
Hi Suzanne,
I concur with James! If we could see a sample slide or two, that would give us a better idea of what you're looking to do and nail down why it isn't working for you.
You can attach your file right here!
I have attached a file I created where I attempted to use shortcut keys to advance the slides and answer a yes no question but could not get them to work. These shortcut keys were in addition to mouse controls which I got to work. I am a new Storyline user. I am trying to convert many presentations from Presenter to Storyline so that they will be accessible. Screen reader users and mobility impaired users need shortcut keys to advance slides. Please tell me what I did wrong so we can all learn!
Hi Steve. Your file works for me. You'll want to take care not to use keys that are already used by the screen reader. JAWS, for example, uses a lot of keys. One way to find out what the screen reader user prefers is to ask them. I know the down arrow is something that many JAWS readers use to advance through the DOM. Using this as a hotkey will prevent JAWS users from hearing any of the content on the screen. The screen reader will only read items that are tabbed to using the tab key or ALT-tab. Since the screen reader user will be using their tab key to cycle through the items on the screen anyway, extra shortcut keys might be unnecessary. Strategic use of tab order to make the experience as frustration free as possible becomes important:)
For mobility impaired users, the same recommendation applies. Lots of folks with mobility challenges will appreciate shortcut keys. I like them too. The barrier becomes accounting for the shortcut keys that might be reserved for other uses (JAWS reader). In some cases, I've resorted to using key combinations. However, the tab key suffices in a lot of cases for mobility impaired users since the content is accessible. As with vision impaired users, tab order is key.
Thanks Steve. I have an email into a screen reader user and will post her suggestions as soon as I receive them. At this point I am trying different keys to see if I can get something to work. Some slides did not work for me when I used arrow keys but when I changed the arrow keys to letter keys in the above example, I was able to get all of my slides to follow the command. I assume choice of keys will affect reliability. Also there seemed to be inconsistency in whether the command was listed as a "player" or "slide" command but it worked either way in my test program. However, when I tried the Y and N keys to branch (the same key trigger commands that I used in my test program) in my more complicated actual presentation- they did not work. I will focus on the tab sequence as you suggested as that seemed pretty reliable. It would be nice to be able to pause the narration with a shortcut key so a screen reader user could then scan the slide by tabbing before the slide automatically advances but I couldn't get that to work either.
Hi Steve W.! I just want to share a little heads up with you. We have an issue in Storyline 3 when navigating to a slide from the Player (Next button or Menu, for example) where the keypress triggers won't work unless you click on the slide or tab into the slide first. The focus stays on the player rather than the slide when you navigate this way.
I'll keep this discussion updated with any changes to that behavior, but I wanted to let you know in case you were seeing inconsistency with those keypress triggers.
OK, that explains the inconsistency. Thank you.
JAWS compatible shortcut keyboard keys. This is from an excellent source, Glenda, but I have not tested this yet.
Does any one know a shortcut to assign slide controls to all of the slides or do I need to go through these slides one by one.
Here is her email to me.
Hi Steve,
I checked several programs to see if there are keys that consistently are not used by JAWS. I found a bunch that seem to always be free. Then isolated them down to ones that are grouped together.
So, to do the things you want them to be able to do, try setting these as the commands:
Forward = insert + l
back = insert + k
Next = insert + ;
pause/ play the narration = insert +p
That last one is used in windows media player so that should be a familiar keystroke for JAWS Users. But, if you are concerned of a conflict, which there shouldn’t be when their system is focus on your program, then instead of insert + p use insert + ‘
JAWS use the insert key in most of its commands so using it for those keys would not be so weird for those users.
As a caveat, stay away from the caps lock key, that is used by Fusion which is Zoomtext with JAWS.
I should have checked before I posted. Storyline did not allow me to use insert with a letter. I checked with Glenda Such and while slides are playing you can use any key by itself without interfering with JAWS. I tried the S key to start and P key to pause and it worked just fine as long as I had tabbed to slide content.
OK I use P to pause narration and R to resume in slide controls and have added these controls to my templates. They seem to work with Windows Narrator as well. Is there some way I can apply a template or otherwise avoid adding the pause and resume controls to each slide when I import slides from Presenter? I'm converting hundreds of slides to meet accessibility requirements- it would help. Can you suggest any work around for the problem with tab order reversing when text is animated by paragraph?
Hi Steve. The tabbing issue with text boxes that are animated by paragraph is a bug that we're investigating. I'm sorry I don't have a workaround, other than having individual text boxes for each "paragraph." I'll keep you updated on the bug.
It sounds like you'd like to eliminate the play/pause button on the Player. In Storyline 3, that function is connected to the seekbar. If you don't need the seekbar, open the Player Properties window and deselect the seekbar. Then, to make sure it still isn't showing up in slides unwanted, you can set the properties of multiple slides at once in Story View:
Let me know if you need more help!
Hi everyone!
We just released Storyline 3 Update 10 (Build 3.10.22406.0) today, which includes the fix for the bug where tabbing through text boxes was out of order with animation!
This update comes packed with accessibility enhancements that will make building accessible courses a lot easier. Here's a list of everything included in this update.
Head over here to download Storyline 3 Update 10.
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