I have a question for eLearning developers in Ontario; what do you do to your courses to be AODA (disabilities) compliant? We currently have narration plus text on screen, as well as text in notes section, alt/text on images and buttons and alternative slides for interactions, such as drag and drops.
I would like to move away from the text on the screen, but still comply with AODA. I'd like to learn what others are doing. Do you provide transcripts of the course as a download?
Hi Linda, How about adding a CC button that the user can click to expose the text if they wish? Keep up the good work! I have not provided transcripts as a download because I'm not sure how the user would match the content with the correct slide. Cheers, Julie
Interesting. At my place of employement, we have so few computers with sound that the majority of our courses have no audio/naration. We rely on text on our screens, which has a whole set of issues as well, the primary of them being...trying not to be too text heavy.
In those instances where we do have an audio or video, I have provided a transcript in several ways. I've added the transcript to the notes area. I've added them as a scrolling pane. I've also added them as a downloadable document in the resources.
As Julie mentioned, ensuring the reader knows which slide the content goes with you could do this in a few ways as well. Number you slides and number the text [paragraphs] so that they match. Or provide a screenshot with the accompying text beside or below it. Add this to your course as a download.
One cool feature Lynda.com has is in their transcripts of the videos. The transcript will highlight the sentences as the person is talking, plus if you click on any sentence of the transcript it will take you to that section of the video. This is probably doable in Storyline with the use of a scrolling panel, but it would be a lot of work.
I do a lot of courses with audio so this comes up all the time. The trick is to make the courses AODA compliant and useable for people with disabilities without destroying the user experience for the rest of the users. The ideal solution would be to create two versions of the course but since this is not always practical I tend to add CC captioning at the bottom of each slide and synch the captions to the narration. If the budget does not permit this then I use the notes panel to display the transcript open to the right. I would rather not have the notes panel open all the time but the option to access the notes from a tab at the top of the course is not workable because the user has to open the tab each time the move to a new screen and the open tab covers too much of the screen.
If I have to make the course compliant (and I know this up front) I also limit the use of layers because of tabbing issues and the fact that you can't create separate notes for the layers.
If I have to use the notes option I also refrain from using lightboxes because the notes do not display in light boxes.
I've attached a story file containing my cc captioning method.
Thanks for everyone's input. As stated above, I find it difficult to make courses accessible, while still making them interesting for other learners. I love your cc sample Nancy, it is very elegant, but I don't think it would be workable with the amount of text in most of our courses. I'm leaning toward notes and/or a downloadable scripts, with slide images opposite words (if I can convince others).
For those who are interested and in the GTA, I noticed that there is an Accessible eLearning seminar being offered by CSTD on January 21st.
Hi Linda! I was also going to suggest the same thing as Julie, the CC button that can be revealed with additional info. I've seen that work well on compliant project I've seen in the past. Thanks for pointing out the seminar about Accessible Learning that should be a really good one!
Thanks everyone, I cannot tell you enough how this has helped me! I am grateful for your efforts.
Quick question: is it AODA compliant to have a notes section on the side tab? I heard it said somewhere that it is a trap for screen readers like JAWS to have the notes tab but I thought it may be a good solution (outside of the closed captioning idea).
Any additional info on making AODA compliant courses would be very appreciated.
When setting up triggers in your slides to move to the next slide using a keyboard command, do you use any specific set of keys (such as the right arrow key to move forward)? I've found when trying that with JAWS it won't work, is that because the JAWS commands take over from the storyline commands?
If that's true we should be using the JAWS keyboard commands as the triggers in our slides correct?
Darren, I normally use the built in NEXT and PREV buttons on the player, Jaws has no problem with them. Triggers to buttons made on the slide should work without problem as well. However, although I haven't tried using the arrow keys with Jaws, I would imagine that it would cause problems because there is nothing on the screen so it wouldn't be able to read and interpret the arrow triggers.
We had written instructions for a user to click on the right or left arrow key in the slide as well as in the audio script. I should have mentioned that earlier so I apologize.
One more quick question:
Do you know if it's mandatory to have audio narration for an assessment like an exam? We have it on our online courses but currently not yet in the exam portion of a course.
I don't think the the audio narration is necessary, I think it's good to have, but, remember that as long as there is a text version, a reader like Jaws will say the words anyways.
Stirring up conversations on an old thread. I'm trying to employ the closed captioning model that Nancy shared above, however, I'm wondering if I can get it to work with slides that are generated from the view-it-mode screen capturing.
I have a series of slides, some information based which now have the CC Button and Transcript Layer that exists, but when trying to apply it to the master slide that deals with the screen capturing results, it appears the actual screen capture overwrites anything that might be on the master slide for it's type.
This seems to be really involved to be AODA compliant with storyline. Captivate seems to be easier. Also to my knowledge storyline only works with JAWS and no other screen readers.
16 Replies
Hi Linda, How about adding a CC button that the user can click to expose the text if they wish? Keep up the good work! I have not provided transcripts as a download because I'm not sure how the user would match the content with the correct slide. Cheers, Julie
Interesting. At my place of employement, we have so few computers with sound that the majority of our courses have no audio/naration. We rely on text on our screens, which has a whole set of issues as well, the primary of them being...trying not to be too text heavy.
In those instances where we do have an audio or video, I have provided a transcript in several ways. I've added the transcript to the notes area. I've added them as a scrolling pane. I've also added them as a downloadable document in the resources.
As Julie mentioned, ensuring the reader knows which slide the content goes with you could do this in a few ways as well. Number you slides and number the text [paragraphs] so that they match. Or provide a screenshot with the accompying text beside or below it. Add this to your course as a download.
One cool feature Lynda.com has is in their transcripts of the videos. The transcript will highlight the sentences as the person is talking, plus if you click on any sentence of the transcript it will take you to that section of the video. This is probably doable in Storyline with the use of a scrolling panel, but it would be a lot of work.
I do a lot of courses with audio so this comes up all the time. The trick is to make the courses AODA compliant and useable for people with disabilities without destroying the user experience for the rest of the users. The ideal solution would be to create two versions of the course but since this is not always practical I tend to add CC captioning at the bottom of each slide and synch the captions to the narration. If the budget does not permit this then I use the notes panel to display the transcript open to the right. I would rather not have the notes panel open all the time but the option to access the notes from a tab at the top of the course is not workable because the user has to open the tab each time the move to a new screen and the open tab covers too much of the screen.
If I have to make the course compliant (and I know this up front) I also limit the use of layers because of tabbing issues and the fact that you can't create separate notes for the layers.
If I have to use the notes option I also refrain from using lightboxes because the notes do not display in light boxes.
I've attached a story file containing my cc captioning method.
Thanks for everyone's input. As stated above, I find it difficult to make courses accessible, while still making them interesting for other learners. I love your cc sample Nancy, it is very elegant, but I don't think it would be workable with the amount of text in most of our courses. I'm leaning toward notes and/or a downloadable scripts, with slide images opposite words (if I can convince others).
For those who are interested and in the GTA, I noticed that there is an Accessible eLearning seminar being offered by CSTD on January 21st.
Hi Linda! I was also going to suggest the same thing as Julie, the CC button that can be revealed with additional info. I've seen that work well on compliant project I've seen in the past. Thanks for pointing out the seminar about Accessible Learning that should be a really good one!
Hi All,
I found this recent pdf which discusses elearning and AODA compliance. Might provide more guidance.
Accessibility in e-Learning
Cheers, Mike
Thanks Mike, this should prove to be helpful.
Linda
Thanks everyone, I cannot tell you enough how this has helped me! I am grateful for your efforts.
Quick question: is it AODA compliant to have a notes section on the side tab? I heard it said somewhere that it is a trap for screen readers like JAWS to have the notes tab but I thought it may be a good solution (outside of the closed captioning idea).
Any additional info on making AODA compliant courses would be very appreciated.
Hi Darren, the Notes section is AODA compliant as long as there is no scrollbar on it. Scrollbars of any kind are not assessible.
Thanks Linda!
Another quick questions.
When setting up triggers in your slides to move to the next slide using a keyboard command, do you use any specific set of keys (such as the right arrow key to move forward)?
I've found when trying that with JAWS it won't work, is that because the JAWS commands take over from the storyline commands?
If that's true we should be using the JAWS keyboard commands as the triggers in our slides correct?
Darren, I normally use the built in NEXT and PREV buttons on the player, Jaws has no problem with them. Triggers to buttons made on the slide should work without problem as well. However, although I haven't tried using the arrow keys with Jaws, I would imagine that it would cause problems because there is nothing on the screen so it wouldn't be able to read and interpret the arrow triggers.
Once again Linda appreciate the feedback!
We had written instructions for a user to click on the right or left arrow key in the slide as well as in the audio script. I should have mentioned that earlier so I apologize.
One more quick question:
Do you know if it's mandatory to have audio narration for an assessment like an exam? We have it on our online courses but currently not yet in the exam portion of a course.
Thanks again!
I don't think the the audio narration is necessary, I think it's good to have, but, remember that as long as there is a text version, a reader like Jaws will say the words anyways.
Hey Guys,
Stirring up conversations on an old thread. I'm trying to employ the closed captioning model that Nancy shared above, however, I'm wondering if I can get it to work with slides that are generated from the view-it-mode screen capturing.
I have a series of slides, some information based which now have the CC Button and Transcript Layer that exists, but when trying to apply it to the master slide that deals with the screen capturing results, it appears the actual screen capture overwrites anything that might be on the master slide for it's type.
Hopefully I'm making sense.
-Kevan
This seems to be really involved to be AODA compliant with storyline. Captivate seems to be easier. Also to my knowledge storyline only works with JAWS and no other screen readers.
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