Storyline 2, screen readers & accessibility

Aug 09, 2016

I am currently redeveloping one of our self-directed courses using Storyline 2, and have started testing for accessibility (AODA compliance), using Mac screen reader - VoiceOver. 

Here's how I prepped the various assets to be recognized by the screen reader:

  1. left the default "object is available to accessibility tools" checked 
  2. added alternate text tags using the Size and Position menu
  3. customized tags using Tab Order window (see taborder.png)

I have tested the .story.html output on three browsers: Chrome, Firefox and Safari, and neither picks up the tags added to the content. I can clearly see the yellow accessibility boxes around content I added tags to, however the tags themselves are not recognized (see aodatesting1(2).png). This is problematic.

Here's a live course demo

Any insight on how I can make the tags readable would be helpful. 

12 Replies
Agnieszka Gorgon

Hi Ashely,

I have just tested the course with Jaws screen reader in Internet Explorer, using both the .story.swf and .story.html files, and none of the text included in alt tag fields is being recognized.  I have read through the support documentation, and I believe everything is setup correctly. 

I am attaching .story file for the first few slides.

Thank you for your help.

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Ok - I had a chance to take a look at your course and I published it here to Tempshare to fully test it out. You'll want to ensure you open the course in Internet Explorer first and then open Jaws...if you do the opposite you'll only hear Jaws read out the key press of tab. But I was able to hear it read the course title and the alt text associated with the items on the first slide. Can you test it using that link in IE11 and ensure that you open the course and then JAWS?

Agnieszka Gorgon

Hi Ashley,

Thank you very much for walking me through this. I tired the course through the link you provided on a different PC, and it works! This is excellent. Thank you. 

On a related note, do you know if Articulate is currently working on updating Storyline to work with other screen readers? Is there someone I could speak to about this? 

Thank you once again for supporting me with this question. I appreciate your help. 

Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Agnieszka, 

Glad we were able to get that working for you! Sorry about the first bad link. :) 

As for other screen readers, we don't announce our product roadmap, possible features, etc. until an update or new product is launched so I don't have information to share on that. Is there a specific screen reader that you'd like it to work with? Have you tested it with that as well? Im happy to pass along the feedback to our product team if you're looking for something else with the accessible content or you can share it here in the form of a feature request. 

Agnieszka Gorgon

Hi Ashely,

I just submitted a feature request.

To recap my request, ideally, I would like content developed in Storyline 2 + to be accessible through a wide variety of screen readers. Jaws is one of the readers people with visual impairment use, but it's not the only one. Our internal tester, a Mac user, uses VoiceOver, a free reader embedded with Mac OS.  I have tested Storyline output on VoiceOver, and the reader picks up nothing. The message I get is empty HTML content. During our testing, our accessibility consultant also mentioned the free Windows based NVDA screen reader, which is becoming more popular.

I recognize that this is potentially a platform issue, but something to pay attention to, as Canada (Ontario specifically) moves into its next phase of online accessibility requirements. 

Thank you again for your help. 

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