SL360: Focus Order is not showing layers, only the base layer. Is that normal?

Hi Laura!

Thanks for reaching out and sharing all of your concerns about creating an accessible project.

I'd recommend creating a single project that is accessible for all vs. creating a separate project that will also need to be maintained.

Let's dive into each of your concerns:

• Drag and drop interaction
  • These interactions are not keyboard accessible, and we recommend providing keyboard-accessible alternatives, such as dials or sliders.
  • Here is our Articulate Storyline 360 Accessibility Conformance Report.
• Click to reveal
  • Interactive objects are correctly identified to assistive technologies and function as expected.
• Focus Order
  • You mention tabbing through in preview mode and only seeing the top layer. Does this mean that you are unable to open all of your layers?
  • How do your layers open?
  • If the objects are not interactive, you will not see a focus highlight, and screen reader users do not tab through. Check out this article to understand what to expect:
    • Storyline 360: Slide Content Is More Accessible
  • All of the layer content should be included in your focus order.
    • Have you customized your focus order, or did you create a custom order
    • Storyline 360: Customizing the Focus Order of Slide Objects
• Do I need to add triggers for right and left arrows to move from page to page? I have regular navigation turned on for clicks and swipes.
  • It sounds like you've already had the trigger built, so the user should be able to tab to the button and hit enter for the click.

Thank you Leslie, for such a comprehensive fashion. I will review these resources.

WRT the focus order question, I think I get it now. Learners can "tab" to an interactive thing on the slide, such as a box and they need to hit enter to open the layer. I guess I didn't understand what the tab was to do. My next question is: If there is a box, then a title, then another box, I should remove these boxes (not the text) from the focus order because they are simply not important, right?

With regards to focus order and tabbing, does this work vision impaired folks? In other words, if they tabbed to a box that has an interaction to "click it" or hit enter" to see the layer, does the screen reader read out to them that they need to hit enter? Sorry for my confusion.

Lastly, how do I set it up such that they don't need to tab through slide controls such as volume, menu, resources, BUT I do need them to go to the next or previous buttons? Is that possible?

Thank you again.

I'm glad I could help, Laura, and I'm happy to help with your additional questions.

1. If there is a box, then a title, then another box, I should remove these boxes (not the text) from the focus order because they are simply not important, right?
   You're correct. If the content is decorative and not part of the learning experience, I would remove the item from the focus order.
2. If they tabbed to a box that has an interaction to "click it" or hit enter" to see the layer, does the screen reader read out to them that they need to hit enter?
   Yes, the screen reader will know if the item is interactive.
3. How do I set it up such that they don't need to tab through slide controls such as volume, menu, resources, BUT I do need them to go to the next or previous buttons?
   If the controls are essential to your project, you'd want your screen reader users to be able to access them as well. You mention volume, menu, resources, and prev/next buttons. The order will be slide, volume, prev/next, menu, resources. So, if they are choosing to go to the next slide, they are not tabbing through the menu or resources.
   
   Storyline 360: The Accessible Player Makes Navigation Easier

Is there a way to make a tabbed interaction accessible?

I have a base layer where the tabs are located, when each tab is clicked the content for that tab appears on the base layer beside the tabs, however, I cannot get jaws to read the content from the layers. I have tried focus order but it won't read the content from the layers. I have a course that has many of these types of interactions. I am going to attach the slide in question.

On the published version below, I can tab to each tab and after I hit the enter button on keyboard each of the tabs works as expected, however, I cannot get the screen reader NVDA or JAWS to read the layer content.

Thanks

Hello Wendy, 

Happy to help!

Looks like you tried sharing a project file with us but instead shared the published output. Would you mind uploading your Storyline 360 .story project file so we can take a look at how you have your focus order setup?

Sorry about that

Tab interaction are easy to make accessible ensure that the layer text is after the button that opens the layer. At the moment they will not read as they are at the top of the focus order, also on the buttons you can remove the button suffix as this will already be read by screen readers and would red "...button button"

One thing you will need to do is open you states and remove the alt tags from all of the additional objects if not they will get red in orders you do not expect.

There is something wrong with your slide it is painfully slow and I have no idea why.