Matching Drop Down Question - not 508/accesibility compliance?

Mar 31, 2017

Hi all,

Has anybody found out if there is a way to make Matching Drop down question accesible in Storyline?

We work with this program to generate some of our courses and we see inconsitencies between the publicity of Articulate around its grade of 508 compliancy and with what really is...

For example, when comming into the types of activities that are theocally compliance Articulate indicated that the compliance exceptions are Drag and drop interactions and Hotspot questions, but we could see many other compliance conflicts.

For example; The matching drop down allows the user to select the options from the drop down list, but its impossible to make the screenread to indicate (read) the content of the options readed. Has anybody found a solution for this?

Other example is the "Fill in the Blank" option i where the screenreader is not capable to review for the user what he/she has typed.

Something similar happens with the "choose one" type questions, in where the user can use the keyborad to navigate trough the diferent answer options provided, but, when choosin one is not allowed to select it as correct (move it into the right place) to make his/her selection.

Has anybody, solved any of this challenges? Our opinion at this point is that one True/false and Multiple Choice questions are truthly accesible, and this reduces dramaticly the posibilities of this tool to generate compliance accesible course without strong extra programing

Any other opinion?

 

39 Replies
Ramos A

Hi Crystal, thanks for the try. We explored those guidelines and it seems they are not fully acurrate...

Those indicate that onl "drag and drop", and "hotspot" activities provide limitations.

But in our experience it seems that matching drop down are not complience either as its impossible to make the screenread to indicate (read) the content of the options listed in the drop down.
Either "Fill in the Blank" option allows the user to read what he/she has typed, and the "choose one" type questions, doesnt allowe the user move his option choose to the right place by using a keyboard.

Said in other way it seems that only "True/false" and "Multiple Choice" questions are truthly accesible.

Pleasse let us know if we are missing anything...

 

thanks in advance,

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Ramos,

I did find an issue our team is looking into where JAWS isn't reading the drop down list correctly, but it should at least allow you to tab between items and make a selection. 

We'll let you know here as soon as we have more info. For the other issues you mentioned, it would help to know more about your set up. Are you using Storyline 3 or 360? What screen reader do you use? What different browsers have you tested this in? Any other info you could share would be helpful!

Ramos A

Hi Ashley,

Thats right,. The drop down list can be tab between items and make a selection using keyboard but JAWS can´t read those items and therefore its impossible for the user to know what is selecting, so the option is not compliance.

Regarding to the fill the blank option there is a similar problem; JAWS will not read the option typed by the user, so cant undrstand if typed correctly, and/or allow him to go back, so same problem. Choose one" type questions, cant´be managed by using a keyboard.

We have tried in Storyline and 360 and JAWS with any browser, so the issue is in tool.

It will be great to know if you will finally get to any fix.

Thanks in advance!

 

Bob O'Donnell

I sent this to our 508 JAWS test person yesterday and she confirmed it doesn't work.

Here's what she wrote back to me:

"JAWS does not seem to read the choices in the drop-down menu.

Apparently you should be able to hear the choices by using the arrow keys ("List box collapsed. To move to an item press the arrow keys."), but using the arrow keys didn't seem to work for me."

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Kathy,

I don’t currently have any updates, but I will let the team know that there are additional authors running into this issue.  You should now be subscribed to this conversation which means as we share updates here, you’ll automatically be notified.

Please let me know if I can help with anything else.

Yuming Chang

Hi there, I have just updated to version 3.36. and tested. The screen reader (JAWS and NVDA) read the dropdown menu list, however, once tabbed to the combo dropdown menu, it doesn't read each choice text. 

Does anyone know how to let it read like:

Read choice 1 text, then tab to combo dropdown menu, then select an item,

Read choice 2 text, then tab to combo dropdown menu, then select an item.

Again, the screen reader read this way by using down arrow key or Ctrl+down arrow. BUT once use tab to select the combo dropdown menu, you can no longer make the screen reader read the text of the choices.

Hope there is an answer... Thanks!

JJ Wallenius

Hi All, I'm trying to solve this same problem of making a drop-down matching quiz accessible. I am not able to add the quiz answer objects into the tab order. There are only two quiz objects in the tab order: "Textbox" which is the question and "Matching Drop-Down" which contains all of the answers. In the timeline, I can expand it and see the individual answer objects, but it seems that they are grouped and cannot be ungrouped, and there is no option to add the individual quiz answer objects into the tab order... Can anyone help me with this?

Leslie McKerchie

Hi JJ,

Thanks for contacting us and sharing what you are experiencing and what you would like to see in your project file.

You are correct and the entire interaction is treated as one 'Tab Order' object.

When testing an example, I'm seeing the slide content read by the screen reader as well as the ability to arrow through and select the items from the drop-down as expected.

A recent update allowed for easier navigation of accessible content as you can read about here:

Slide Content Is More Accessible

Could you share the issue that you're running into with your matching drop-down quiz being accessible?

Stefaniada Voichita

Hi there, What about a reflection activity.  Is there any way to have this besides using the Survey activity option? And is this accessible or not in Storyline 360? Could anyone please let me know?   I need to create a reflection activity that is also accessible in Storyline 360. Thank you. Regards, Stef

JJ Wallenius

Thank you, Leslie! I was manually going through alt text and tab order to ensure accessibility, and without testing, it appeared to be inaccessible. 

Is there any word on making more interactive quiz questions (like drag-and-drop) accessible? Some of the more fun and engaging options aren't accessible (at least to my knowledge).

Lauren Connelly

Hi Stefaniada!

These answers can be reported on the following slide by adding the variable in a text box. For example, the text entry field uses the variable TextEntry1. On the next slide, I would add a text box that has the text %TextEntry1%. This will display what the user has typed in.

If you're using an LMS and want to see the responses, make sure to use a Survey Results Slide.

I've recorded a short demo on how to create this. Here's the link.