Screen Reader (JAWS) will not read states of buttons (visited or selected) and it can't access a hidden button that has turned normal

Hi Erin!

Thank you so much for bringing this to my attention! I see the same on my end with buttons that have the initial state set to hidden. If you choose to change the initial state to disabled, you can use the keyboard to navigate to the next button.

This doesn't look like an issue with JAWS but an issue with the keyboard navigation in Storyline 360 when a button is set to hidden as the initial state. I see that we've already logged this as a bug, and I will add your comments to our bug report. I'll keep you updated in this discussion.

Again, I appreciate you taking the time to share this with me!

Thanks for the quick reply Lauren.  Do you have any information about the states not reading?  Selected or Visited states.

Thanks,

EV

Hi Erin!

Yes, we've logged this as a bug where a screen reader doesn't read the states. I've reported this again to my team so we can determine if this is a regression. I appreciate you bringing this to my attention!  I'll share any updates in this discussion. 

Thank you so much, Erin!

Hello Erin!

Good news! Today, we just released Storyline 360 Update 68 (Build 3.68.28773.0) which included the fix for the bug where states aren't being read by a screen reader.

Now all you need to do is update Storyline 360 in your Articulate 360 desktop app!

If you have additional questions, don't hesitate to reach out in this discussion or in a support case. 

Hi there,  We are experiencing issues with screen reader not reading the button states (e.g. Visited).  Updated today (v3.38.28820.0) with the latest Storyline 360.

Welcome to the E-Learning Heroes community, Veronica!

I see that you’ve reached out to our Support Engineers and are working with my teammate, Darrell. You’re in great hands! We’ll continue the conversation in your support case.

I have updated the accessibility text for the visited state of all my buttons, but JAWS reads them as normal buttons. I thought a previous update was supposed to make JAWS read different buttons states? I'm on Build 3.73.30119.0.

Hello Nicole, 

Thanks for reaching out!

You'll need to add the alternative text for each state so JAWS can read them back to your learners. 

I tested this using JAWS 2021 and can confirm that adding the 'Alternate text' for the states will allow JAWS to read the states of a button.

Let me know if this works for you!

Hi Joe,

I have already added alt text for all buttons and updated the alt text for the visited state.

I tested using JAWS 2022, with accessible text turned on and the alternate text updated for each button, and JAWS DOES NOT read the state any different than the normal state.

Hi Nicole!

Sorry to hear you've hit this snag, but I'd be happy to help!

I saw your previous post where you mention being on build 3.73.30119.0. Earlier this week we released Storyline version 3.74.30180.0. With that update we saw a fix for:

• Screen readers skipped some objects on layers and unexpectedly changed the state of some hyperlinks.

To take advantage of this update, launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer and click the Update button next to Storyline 360. You can find our step-by-step instructions here!

After that, we'd recommend testing with JAWS again to see if your buttons/states are now being recognized by the screen reader.

Please let me know if you have any more questions!

Hi Steven,

I updated Storyline after my initial message and have since republished the course. I also tried selecting the accessible text option again. I just retested, and JAWS does not read the state of the button, just the normal button text. If it would help, I can upload a few slides from the course so you can see for yourself.

Hi Nicole, 

Thanks so much for letting us know. Sorry to hear you're still running into this issue. 

I'd love to take a closer look at your file in order to better assist you. Feel free to upload to this thread or privately in a support case.

Hi everyone!

I have some great news to share! We just released another update for Storyline 360. In Update 81, we've included important fixes and new features.

One of the bugs we've fixed is: 

• Screen readers didn't always follow the correct focus order around the player menu or hidden slide objects

Launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer to take advantage of this update, and click the Update button next to Storyline 360. You'll find our step-by-step instructions here.

Please let me know if you need additional help!

Is there any movement on the second half of this issue? The one about built-in Visited and Selected states not being announced as visited or selected? My expectation would be they would work similarly to the built-in disabled state which reads the name of the button along with the word "unavailable." I would expect the built-in Visited and Selected states to read the name of the button followed by the word "visited" or "selected" so that we don't have to manually do that for all our buttons. 

Is there a different discussion link that I should have bookmarked for the Visited/Selected issue?

Hi Michele, 

Happy to assist!

The bug discussed in this where states aren't read by a screen reader has already been fixed in an earlier update of Storyline 360. In this published output of a single slide containing a single button that has both "visited" and "selected" states, I can confirm that NVDA screen reader was able to detect both states. 

If you are experiencing different behavior for your objects, first make sure that you are running the latest available version of Storyline 360. Additionally, check to see if you have the alternative text for your buttons properly assigned as discussed in my previous response here. If your screen readers are still unable to detect the states, would you be willing to share a copy of your project file here or in private by opening a support case so we can take a closer look at what's happening? We'll delete it when we're done testing!

Hello! Yes, I understand that you can set buttons up to have these names read and that they will be read if you manually add alt text to the appropriate state. However, my expectation was that Articulate would fix this issue by making the alt text automatically use the word "visited" or "selected" in the appropriate the built-in states through code additions when published.

Meaning we wouldn't have to manually add/type the word "visited" in the alt text after every button name and "selected" in the alt text after every button name. That would save a lot of time. If this is not how Articulate intended to fix this issue, then let me know - if that is the case, I suspect I need to ask for a feature request?

Hi Michele!

Thanks for the clarification!

No need to create a feature request, as our development team already has one logged! This feature would allow Storyline to Automatically populate alt text for button states. I've added you to the feature report and will update this discussion as soon as we have news to share!

Have a great rest of your week!

Thanks so much for that, Steven!

Hi Michele!

You're welcome, happy to help!

Have a great start to your week!