Forum Discussion
Articulate 360 and Screen Readers
I’ve been experiencing some issues with using the NVDA screen reader with my Articulate eLearning and was wondering if anyone may be able to help please?
In brief, I’ve added Alternative Text to the elements I want read on the slide and removed everything else on the page in the Focus Order option in Articulate. When I review the slide with the NVDA screen reader on it reads ‘clickable frame main land mark Assessment and Fluid Balance button’, ‘Assessment and Fluid Balance’ being my alternative text. No idea where it’s getting the other words from. It seems to read the title of the file or says the word ‘blank’ when I move onto the next slide. Do you know if there are specific settings in NVDA that control what it picks up to read? Microsoft Narrator seems to be different again. It reads the name of the object on the slide, not the alternative text I’ve added, it does add the word ‘button’ . When it moves to the next slide it says ‘group’. Personally, I think I prefer the way Narrator works but neither are fit for purpose in their current setup.
I was under the impression Articulate works well with NVDA especially. Any advice or guidance will be gratefully received. Many thanks in advance.
Sarah
Hi Sarah!
When NVDA reads "blank", it's intentional by NVDA and they do not plan to change this. Leslie reported in this similar discussion: “This is intentional, it lets the user know that their interaction was successful, even if there is no content to report.”
"Clickable Frame Main Landmark" is an ARIA landmark. Screen reader users are able to understand items on the screen and navigate to them using them.
If it is reading "Group", I would make sure that if you have a group of items on a slide, that the grouped object is not visible to accessibility tools. If you have multiple items and you have hidden them from the focus order, but the grouped item hasn't been hidden, it will be announced.
Also, are you testing your course in a published output and not in Storyline preview? That is the recommended practice for testing!
Morning Elizabeth
Thank you for replying to my plea for help. I won't worry about the 'blank' and 'clickable frame main landmark' options then if this is something users of screen readers are familiar with. I am however still confused about the 'group' announcement as I definitely don't have any items listed in my order focus, and occasional it reads out the name of the slide in the Articulate working file??? I have tested in Review360 and by publishing it to our LMS and the results are exactly the same with both options.
Any chance your "group" that you're hearing is happening on a quiz question? NVDA will often recognize that there is one available answer and so the clickable items are a "group." Same with button sets!
Hi Elizabeth, thanks for your comments. The 'group' speech is happening on every slide whether it's a quiz question or not unfortunately. I'll keep persevering....
