More Developer Control over tab order in Storyline

Dec 06, 2012

I work as a Senior eLearning Specialist/Developer/ID in Canada. My clients are primarily financial institutions and government agencies.  Several of them have tried or are looking at Storyline and will consider using it as their prime development tool but.....      They have all come across the same issue when testing ( as have I when building accessible courses). 

The Tab Order does not function correctly and needs to be redesigned to that the developer has a greater degree of control over the order in which items on the screen will tab.   I have read the previous posts on the subject and I am not the only developer who has come across this issue.    Having control over the tab order is of prime consideration when developing a course that has to meet accessibility standards.    And yes, I know Storyline meets Section 508 standards ( in that content is accessible via the keyboard). But, not being able to control the order in which the accessible learner can actually "read" the control makes it useless as a development tool (for accessible content).

Having said that, all that is needed is a tool/method/process, that the learning developer can access to properly set tab order.    Please don't take this post as demeaning the product. I love Articulate Storyline.   What I need to know is when or if Articulate will address this issue? 

I am being asking by corporate and government clients if they should or should not use Storyline. They too are concerned over this issue.   I need to be able to respond to their questions, in some manner.  Can you provide any sort of details on whether or not this issue will or will not be resolved in the next update?  

Thanks... Steve Chorny

5 Replies
Christine Hendrickson

Hi Steve,

Thanks for all the information. Yes, you're correct, this is something that has been brought up in previous conversations. I just wanted to take a minute to suggest submitting a feature request (if you haven't already). The more information we get about this, how the changes would improve usability and specific details from customers, the more we can work to provide the option and additional accessibility to the software. We take these requests very seriously. 

If you would like to be the first to know about updates and product releases, I would encourage you to subscribe to Gabe Anderson's blog.

You can also follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/Articulate

and Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/Articulate

If you would like to be added to a list of potential beta testers, let me know and I'll be happy to add you to the list. We cannot offer a time frame for any feature enhancements or future release dates.
Thanks again for taking the time to share this information, Steve.
Christine
Stephen Curran

We just completed an accessibility review of a training module implemented in Storyline and tab order is proving to be a showstopper for us on accessibility. I'm not the developer on this, but we'll need to make a decision on how to handle accessibility for this work. Has the ability to control tab order been addressed in the product since this posting, or is there a workaround that provides the ability to control tab ordering?

I would agree with Steve (above) that this shortcoming makes the Storyline Section 508 claim theoretically true, but not practically. 

Thanks,

Stephen

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