Weird Issue with Tab Order

Hi R M,

Thanks for sharing that screenshot here - that's really strange behavior. Is this happening with any file or just one particular file? You'll want to make sure that you're working on local project files as detailed here. Lastly I'd look at going through the repair steps and then reach out to our Support Engineers if it's still happening they'll be able to help you one on one. If you do go that route, please share your case number here so I can follow along, as well. :)

@Alyssa Gomez thanks for the response. The scrollbar error appears in every file, sadly. I can also confirm that I am working locally.

The repair link you sent seems to apply to Storyline 360, and I am working on Storyline 2. I may reach out to the support engineers but it will have to wait until the new year as most of us are out of the office until January.

A separate issue I'm having is that tabbing through the objects on my slide, it seems that invisible objects are sometimes the focus. It's frustrating as my client has stated that this is unacceptable. Any thoughts?

Hi R M,

I apologize for linking the steps for Storyline 360 - here are the repair steps for Storyline 2.  

In regards to the invisible objects, can you tell if they are listed in the Tab Order window? I know you mentioned that things look jumbled there, so you may not be able to tell. Without seeing your file, it's hard to say what could be causing this to happen. I would bring this up to the Support Engineers if you decide to open a case so they can investigate further. 

Thanks again Alyssa. There doesn't appear to be any extra objects in the tab order window. But also many of the objects that you CAN tab through do not appear on there, either. I found that opening the states of some objects and disabling the states from screen-readers helped on some objects, but there are still a few phantom objects in my project. Thanks for the advice though! I will try repairing Storyline 2.

Sounds great - keep me posted!

So I found that my "phantom objects" is actually a strange Storyline behavior. If you have 3 objects on your slide, and use the tab key to cycle through them, the yellow selection square will disappear after selecting everything on the slide, but BEFORE selecting anything on the player (volume bar, pause button, etc).

Is there any way to prevent this? My client has stated that this is not compliant with 508- the focus can't disappear in the middle of elements. From the perspective of the client, the Storyline player is simply a part of the learning module and the focus doesn't properly scroll through it.

Any ideas?

edit: I should say that this is easily reproduced by making a new storyline file, putting 3 squares on the slide, and previewing. You can see that you can tab through the 3 squares, but then the focus goes away before landing back on the "previous" button (using all default player options).

Hi again,

Yes, I can certainly see how the yellow box seems to "disappear" or lose focus for one tab before tabbing through the player elements. I'm going to do some further research on this, and I'll pop back in here once I have more information!

Hello again R M! Thank you for your patience :)

When a user tabs after the last object on the slide, they are actually tabbing to the 'skip navigation' option that is read by the screen reader.

When you press the Tab key after the last object on the slide, the screen reader will instruct you to press the spacebar or Enter key if you want to skip player navigation.

• If you press the spacebar or Enter key, your next tab will jump back to the first object on the slide.
• If you don't press the spacebar or Enter key, your next tab will proceed to the player navigation.

You can read more information about the 'skip navigation' option in this article and Storyline 360's Compliance with Section 508 Accessibility Guidelines here. 

Thanks Alyssa! This is very helpful. Do you know if there is any way to disable this feature? My client's 508 compatibility testers have marked this feature as "NC", or "non-compliant". If there's no way to disable it I can have a talk with them and explain and hopefully they are okay with it.

Again thanks for all your help!

Hi R M,

You're welcome! Always happy to help. There isn't a way to disable the 'skip navigation' feature, but hopefully the articles linked above will be helpful when you speak with your client's 508 compatibility testers. 

Thanks for all your help Alyssa!

I am having the same issue as Robert where when I open "Tab Order" and try to add an object using the green plus sign, it won't allow me to scroll to see all items. It gives the appearance that it's scrolling because the lines move, but the text does not. I'm unable to add any object that I previously deleted that needs to be scrolled to. 

I am using Storyline 3, but I had this same issue in Storyline 2. My monitor DPI is at 96% and I'm using an "Aero" Windows theme as the support document recommends.

Sorry that's happening, Christina! I'm sure that's slowing down your workflow, so I'm glad you reached out. 

Let's first try these troubleshooting steps. If you're still having trouble, reach out to our Support Engineers here. They'll work with you one-on-one based on your system set-up. 

Keep me posted!

Thanks, Alyssa!