Storyline 360: JAWS screen reader is reading menu items twice.

Dec 06, 2020

When using the JAWS screen reader with my published Storyline 360 course, it is reading each menu item twice. Can anyone explain to me why this is happening and what I can do to fix this?

29 Replies
Leslie McKerchie

Hello Manhattan Strategy,

As Katie promised, I wanted to let you know that we just released another update for Articulate 360 and included a few important fixes you'll see in the release notes.

The item you'll be interested in is:

Fixed: Screen readers sometimes announced slide titles more than once.

Just launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer and click the Update button for Storyline 360. Details here.

Please let us know if you have any questions, either here or by reaching out to our Support Engineers directly.

Tanmay Ghosh

Hi,

I am using Storyline 360 version v3.54 for creating Accessible courses. I am facing an issue while testing the Questions in JAWS, where the answer options/choices are repeated twice. I have only kept "Question - Multiple Responses" in the focus order and kept the Accessibility checkbox unchecked in each state of each answer options. Still JAWS reading each choices 2 times!

Any idea?

Lauren Connelly

Hello Tanmay!

I'm happy to help! It sounds like JAWS is reading the answers twice even though they're only listed once in the Focus Order. Are you using keyboard navigation to move through the slide? By default, if you don't move through the slide using keyboard navigation, a screen reader will continue reading through the page. 

I've recorded a quick 2-minute screen recording walking through how this setup behaves on my end. I'd recommend updating Storyline 360 to update 55 and making sure that you're using the latest version of JAWS and an updated browser.

Tanmay Ghosh

Hi Lauren,

Thank you so much for reaching out, appreciate your help. The video was quite good!

Just wanted to let you know that I'm using latest browsers and JAWS. 

Meanwhile I have emailed an attachment to Articulate Support team. Can you please test the single screen at your end and let me know if you can hear answer options twice in JAWS?

Thanks,

Tanmay

Lauren Connelly

Hello Tanmay!

I see that you're working with my teammate, Mark, in a case, and he's logged this as a bug where JAWS reads quiz answers twice in Internet Explorer. We'll update you in your case and this discussion when we have a fix to release. I appreciate you bringing this issue up with us!

Mike B.

Lauren, I'm also experiencing this same issue. In my case, I'm testing in Chrome for Windows with JAWS 2020. On all multiple choice and multiple response questions, and when using keyboard navigation, each answer choice is selected and read twice. The first time, it highlights the entire check box and answer choice, and the second time, it only highlights the answer choice without the checkbox. (It then moves to the next answer and repeats the same behaviors.) My upcoming project includes 23 questions, so a solution would be most appreciated. Thanks.

Becca Levan

Hi Mike!

I'm sorry you're experiencing this issue as well, and I appreciate you reaching out.

The bug reported here is linked with Internet Explorer, and since you mention you see this behavior in Chrome, I'd like our support engineers to step in. I've opened a case on your behalf, and you'll hear from our team soon!

Andrea Koehntop

Hi Jennifer, and welcome to the E-Learning Heroes community! ✨

Since this is an older post with a couple of different issues presented, I want to ask you a few questions to begin troubleshooting:

  • To clarify, are you experiencing the issue where screen reader announces slide title twice, or something else?
  • Which screen reader are you using? Are you on the most updated version of the screen reader?
  • Which browser are you using when this issue occurs, or does it happen in more than one browser?

I look forward to your responses and helping you work through this!

Jennifer Hoeke

Any news on the resolution for JAWS reading the answer choices twice, once with the check box and text selected and once with just the text selected.  I have only the multiple response in the focus order and have unchecked the accessibility option to make each text box of the answer choices not visible for accessibility. I am using Chrome to test with JAWS 2021 as my screen reader.

Maria Costa-Stienstra

Hi, Jennifer.

Thank you for reaching out!

We had a bug logged where JAWS screen readers announced answer choices twice in Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, and Google Chrome, but the fix was released in Update 57 (October 2021).

If you are experiencing this issue with content created in a recent version, can you share the .story file through a support case so we can investigate what's happening?

Maria Costa-Stienstra

Hi, Parashuram and Ashutosh.

Based on your experiences and additional tests, we've re-opened the bug report where JAWS reads choices twice in Chrome and Edge when using checkboxes.

We couldn't reproduce the issue with radio buttons on our end. Ashutosh, do you have a sample .story file where this is happening with radio buttons that you could share with our team?

We'll come back to update you when we have news to share!

John Morgan

Hello everyone!

Good news! Today, we just released Storyline 360 Update 67 (Build 3.67.28569.0) which includes a fix for screen readers that might announce check boxes twice.

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.