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SherriWest-9a31's avatar
SherriWest-9a31
Community Member
2 months ago

Accessible Course - Issue using audio with forced navigation

Hello! I have been learning about making courses accessible. I have come across an issue with controlling audio along with forced navigation.

I have a small prototype with a few different slide set ups. I also have a front-end slide that includes an option to turn off automatically playing audio when visiting each slide.

My issue is: For learners who select to turn off the automatic audio play on the front-end slide, we want to force them to actually play each audio on the slides and layers (they will need to click the audio icon at the bottom of each slide/layer).

I have tried a few different ways but cannot come up with a way to include BOTH of the following options on slides:  

  • Learners click all elements on the slide to enable the Next button. This option is currently included on my slides.
  • Learners click all elements AND the audio icons to enable the Next button.

How do I also include a setup on the slides where, if learners have turned off auto play on the front-end slide, they are forced to click all required elements AND audio icons on the main slide and layers in order to Enable the Next button and continue to the next slide.

It seems like any type of setup would cancel each other out.

Thanks!

Sherri

 

storyline 360
  • elizabeth's avatar
    elizabeth
    Partner
    2 months ago

    Hi Sherri,

    From an accessibility standpoint, you have some conflicts here. If you're giving the user the ability to not play the audio automatically, are you trying to meet the standard that media shouldn't auto-play? Since users  select 'Next' to proceed to the next slide, that Next button is really functioning as a "play" for them for the next slide, so the audio isn't really "auto-playing." The "Next" is what they're using to tell Storyline that they're ready to hear the audio and see the content on the next slide. 

    A more common approach is to allow the users to go through the course without audio at all. If a user is navigating using a screen reader, they'll want to hear their screen reader, not your slide audio. There's a good chance they'll end up muting the slide if it is interfering with their screen reader, as I think you mentioned your tester experienced in a previous post.

    When we have a client who requests an accessible course but also restricted navigation, we do things a little simpler. By assuming that the "next" button is functioning as the "play" button for the next slide, we create an error layer that displays if the user selects the next button but has not completed all of the tasks on the slide (like selecting an item to view a layer with more information).

    Your course actually does have your current preferred setup (all elements or all elements and the audio button), since the Next variable you've created doesn't change until the timeline ends, and the timeline will only end if the user plays the audio.

    As far as an accessibility best practice, I'd also recommend that you replace anywhere you say "click" with the word "select." Click implies mouse usage, and someone using assistive technologies may not be clicking, and neither would a user on a mobile device.

    • SherriWest-9a31's avatar
      SherriWest-9a31
      Community Member
      2 months ago

      Hi Elizabeth!

      Thanks for your response. Our tester stated that when entering a slide, the automatic playing of the audio was competing with the announcement of the screen reader. The screen reader starts off announcing the header and title page. That was speaking over the slide audio. That is why they requested the option to turn audio off and offer the audio icon for each slide.

      My issue is trying to make a course fit for both accessible and non-accessible users. Our courses are set up to force users to select all elements on the page, which is All elements Except the audio icon (which is for accessible users). Now that we are making the courses accessible and requiring that accessible users click all elements AND the audio icon, we can't seem to set that up on the slides. Is there a way to make each slide switch to the Accessible requirements (that is, select all elements on the slide plus the audio icon) without interfering with the user experience of persons who are not using accessibility?

      Also, I agree with not forcing users to also listen to slide audio; however, some of our courses have different audio than what is on the slide. This is not in the example I uploaded, but some clients want little text on the slide and then they want the audio to expand on more information. I think when we start a new project, we need to bring this to the client's attention regarding the use of audio. 

      For your point about replacing "click" with "select", thank you! That's a good point and I missed that. We are currently working on a list of items to do for upcoming accessibility courses so I will be sure to fix that!

      • elizabeth's avatar
        elizabeth
        Partner
        2 months ago

        Change your "when" on your variables that control the next button.

        For example, on 1.2 Financial Integrity, change your trigger from Set NextS3 to value True when the timeline ends to instead Set NextS3 to value True when the media completes on the audio file.

        That means that the audio has to play in order for that variable to switch from false to true, and once that variable is true, the next button becomes active.

        I recorded a Peek for you here, sorry if I am long winded :) 

        https://360.articulate.com/review/content/edd9dfcc-96ad-4eb5-8002-253fca803a4c/review

  • SherriWest-9a31's avatar
    SherriWest-9a31
    Community Member
    2 months ago

    Thank you so much for the video and explanation Elizabeth! I appreciate your input on this. Your setup works great for slides 1.2 and 1.3 and will work for slides with no interaction. 

    For slide 1.4, where we have more interaction and users can select different options in any order they choose, I see this type of slide being more complicated to set up. 

    For slide 1.4, if we were required to force accessible users to select and listen to the audio icon on the main slide, then select all 4 popups and select and listen to all audio icons of the 4 popup layers Z(in order to enable the Next button), the only way I see being able to accomplish this would be to change the slide setup so that it is similar to the setup of slide 1.3:

    - This means the user would have to select and listen to all audio for the slide (while the popups were disabled) first.
    - When the slide audio completed, we would enable the first popup button (while all others were disabled), so that the user could select that first popup, then select the audio icon for the first layer.
    - When finished with first popup layer 1, we would then enable the second popup button, and so on.

    Would you agree? 

     

    Also: In comparing both 1.3 and 1.4 together, I see the inconsistency in our training when it comes to forced navigation. 

    - On slide 1.3, we force the learners to click and listen to each popup layer before they can click the next popup layer (so we are forcing them to listen to all audio).
    - On slide 1.4, we let learners click any of the 4 popups in whatever order they choose, and as long as they click all 4 popups, the Next button enables (without forcing them to listen to the complete audio of all 4 popups).

    Your original comment about "allowing the users to go through the course without audio at all" seems to be the best-case scenario for accessible users, especially when the audio is a one-for-one match to the text on the slide. I am hoping more clients will choose this route.

    Thanks!

    Sherri

    • elizabeth's avatar
      elizabeth
      Partner
      2 months ago

      On 1.4 you've got your set NextS8 to true when the state of all the rectangles is visited, which is ok, but it's not requiring the user to listen to the complete audio on your audio layers. 

      Based on the way 1.4 is experienced by the learner, it looks and feels like one slide. It feels confusing that as a learner, I would need to click the card, and also click the audio button on each layer, since it doesn't really look like new layers as far as they know. I would probably approach it like this:

      When the slide begins, Instruct users who don't have audio auto-playing to select the audio button to hear more about the Risk Management Framework. That audio will tell them to click each card.

      Then, when they click the cards, just have the layer show and the audio play (I think this would be what a learner would expect - it's definitely what I expected when I played the slide the first time!). Set the layer properties to prevent the learner from clicking on the other layers, and add a trigger to the audio layers to hide that layer when the timeline ends. Your Next button will become enabled once the user has selected all the buttons.

  • SherriWest-9a31's avatar
    SherriWest-9a31
    Community Member
    2 months ago

    I modified the slide to your suggestion above and then tested it in NVDA screen reader. Unfortunately, by preventing the user from clicking the other layers, the screen reader shifts the focus back to the main slide and repeats the direction for the user to click the card they just clicked. So, for example, when I click Card 1, after the audio completes, the screen reader repeats the direction to click Card 1 again. Then I have to tab to get to the next card. 

    However, I like having the audio automatically play on the layers because there is no text for the screen reader to announce so there is no competition between the screen reader and the audio for the popup layers. This is a smoother way to set up these types of popups.

    I am going to strongly recommend to clients that we do not force learners using screen readers or not) to listen to all audio on popups before the Next button enables. 

    Thank you, Elizabeth, for helping me work through this scenario and for your recommendations for accessibility. I really appreciate it!

    • elizabeth's avatar
      elizabeth
      Partner
      2 months ago

      One thing to keep in mind is that every state can have its own alt text, so, for your visited states, so that the user doesn't hear "Click or press the button to reveal card 1" when they already have, if it's on its visited state, you could have the alt text instead be something like "Card 1 - Completed."

      Just a thought! Good luck with the rest of this project!

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