Making audio unavailable at start of course

Jul 26, 2012

Hi -

I am creating a course that will be used with or without a JAWS reader.  I would like the audio to be unavailable when the learner starts the course in case they are using a JAWS reader.  If the learner is not using a JAWS reader, I would like them to be able to turn the audio on.  I tried a trigger of pausing/stopping audio at start of timeline, but that does not work.  Any other ideas so the audio defaults to "off" at the start of the course?

Thanks!

5 Replies
Steve Flowers

Hi, Carol - 

I think this would make an excellent feature request, but I'd recommend a set of instructions on the first slide that indicate:

  • This program contains audio.
  • If you're using a screen reader, please select the audio icon below and decrease the program audio. This setting will be retained within your current session.

Make sure you show the audio control in your player settings.

It would be great to see a trigger that could be set automatically. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask a user to set this themselves. Conditional audio control gets crazy and can affect the experience of other users, which isn't the intent of universal accessibility

Carol Stirn

Thanks for the info, Steve.  I tested this using the NVDA reader, and the user is able to press Enter to open the volume control, but there is no way to move the slider (that I'm aware of) on the keyboard.  If anyone else has any creative solutions/workarounds for this issue, I would appreciate hearing from you! 

El Burgaluva

Hi, Carol

Some learners not using a screen-reader may not want audio by default. So how about this, which is a solution my team implemented on our latest course (granted, not every slide has audio so it wasn't especially painful):

* put two icons in an unused corner of your (master) layout, one for "audio on" and the other for "audio off"

* create a true/false variable called "audio" (or whatever) with the default value set to "false"

* set triggers on your two icons: "When user clicks button A, change value of variable=audio to true" and vice versa

* apply a variable to the beginning of each slide with audio: "Play audio when slide begins" and add a condition: If the value of the "audio" variable is equal to "true"

Clunky, but workable. And all users can toggle between sound or no sound at any point.

Hope that helps,

Leslie

This discussion is closed. You can start a new discussion or contact Articulate Support.