Forum Discussion
Alt Text in Textboxes
Hi everyone,
I'm prepping some courses for accessibility, but I'm afraid I made a big mistake.
I am in the process of hiding decorative images, but also saw there is alt text for textboxes. I thought this was a mistake by a previous designer because there is so much added alt text where it's not needed. So I've been deleting the alt text from textboxes, which say the same thing as the onscreen text, but keeping them visible to screenreaders. Would screenreaders still pick up the on-slide text if I deleted the alt text? Or do I have to go back and copy-paste them back into the course?
Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!
Alex
5 Replies
As mentioned the default text will be read out. Text does not require Alt-Text. The only time I'll ever add Alt-Text is if the text makes sense for visual users but might need additional support for the visually impared.
Hi trayaw!
Glad to see the community has been helping you. Happy to jump in here!
In Storyline, even if a Text Box has no custom Alt Text, screen readers should still dictate the on-screen text automatically. By default, Storyline automatically makes text styles accessible to screen readers. As long as the text box is also listed within the Focus Order, you should not have issues leaving the Alt Text field blank.
When testing a Text Box with an empty Alt Text field, the JAWS screen reader still dictated my text as it appeared on the Slide.
Let me know how it goes when testing on your end!
I am not 100% on this, however, I think if you change the alt text on a textbox you override what is read.
For example, text box says "The cat sat on the moon", I change ithe alt text to say "The cow jumped over the moon"
The second text wil be read out.
I don't know much about screen readers, but I do know that they read what's on the screen. Because your text boxes have on-screen text, the text reader will read it and so the user will know what they are. Alt text wouldn't be useful there. It's images that need alt text, because there's nothing in the image itself to tell the blind reader what the image is.
The alt text for the textboxes will show in the siz/position dialogue but in the focus order block should not be visible (this is a sign that is is default alt text) if you have removed it you will need to put it back or it will not be read (or at least I dont think it will) you could of course test
