Creating keyboard navigation/ shortcuts for users to navigate

Hi Michelle,

You may want to begin by looking at some of the built in functionality for keyboard controls such as how the tab key will behave, or how the enter key behaves for data entry fields (fill in the blank). 

Additionally, you can set up the triggers for your navigation to correspond to a particular key click. When setting up the trigger you'll use the option listed under "Other events" and select "When user presses a key."  You'll see a box where you'll click inside and then press the key that you would like to correspond with the trigger and you'll see that updated there. 

Hope that helps get you started with your course! 

Thank you very much Ashley,

I have found the trigger other settings and managed to use that, unfortunately where there are too many options exceeding a certain number it did not work that well any more. I looked at the 'how the tab key behaves' which you pointed out and how can I use this for someone who can not use the mouse and who depend on the keyboard to navigate. I was wondering whether there is a possibility for me to make use of the tab functionality to allow a user to select a highlighted area like a button or say hotspot to navigate to a different screen/ slide or layer....

I hope it makes sense.  

Many Thanks

Michelle

Hi Michelle,

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by " where there are too many options exceeding a certain number it did not work that well any more." as each trigger could only have one keyboard button (or a combo such as CTRL+5 or ALT+G, but not G+A) associated with it.

In regards to your second question the tab key can navigate to elements on the slide and to select them the user can use the enter or spacebar key. They will need to have the accessibility feature enabled within the "size and position" window for each slide element that you would like to be accessible using the tab key. 

Hope that helps!

Hi Ashley,

I'm trying to get the tab navigation working in my storyline file but there are two main issues:

1. The yellow box tabs from right to left at the top, and then down the slide - how can I get it to tab from left to right?
2. Once an object is selected, for example a button (and yes it is turned on for screen readers in the Size and Position box), it can't be selected via the keyboard. The space bar and the enter button both do not work. 

Any pointers, before I submit a support ticket? 

Thanks,

Grace

Hi Grace and welcome to Heroes!

There isn't a way to change the order in which elements are tabbed too, but it would be a great feature request. 

In regards to the enter/space key click, that's working for me on a button. Could you tell us a bit more about your set up so that I can test it out on my end or if you'd like to share your files here with us we're happy to take a look. 

Hi Ashley and all,

I have recently encountered a similar issue as Grace R with keyboard navigation in Storyline 1 and 2. 

Once an object is selected, for example a button (Object is visible to accessibility tools checked), it can't be selected via the keyboard. Both space bar and enter button do not work. 

After troubleshooting for a while, I realised that the issue lies in Storyline not liking multiple elements in button states. I have attached an example to illustrate this. 

In my example attached, "Test button 1" works but not "Test button 1" and the difference between both is that "Test button 2" visited state has an addition letter x on it.

Thanks,

James

Hi James,

Thank you for sharing that example file. I took a look and found that this was reported to our QA team for additional review. I don't have any updates to share on this issue, but will tag this thread as a part of the QA report so that I can share any updates here once their available. 

Hi Ashley, Any update on this issue?

Hi Richard,

What update of Storyline 2 are you on? I see that it's noted as fixed a part of Update 5 which added additional 508 support and some custom tab order.   You will want to take a look at installed the latest update (we're now on Update 7) and republishing your courses with that update. Also ensure you're testing the published output within the intended environment. 

Hi Ashley, This is a current issue as described in this other post of seven days ago involving Update 7 that involved key press navigation not working after choosing focus on another slide object: 

https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/custom-next-previous-slide-keys-don-t-work-after-clicking-a-button#reply-312756

I think I found a resolution by removing button-based triggers and adding triggers to the slide master but wanted to confirm that this post's issue and the current issue described in the other post had been resolved by the QA team. This post seems to deal mainly with the Enter key, so wanted to double check.  Thanks!