Forum Discussion
Jaws and focus order
Hi there,
I've previously attended a two day training session on accessible e-Learning which was great, and we've made giant strides in terms of fixing up focus order, removing redundant items, calling out navigation items with custom text etc.
If you preview the course within Storyline, or load it in the LMS and use tab, spacebar and enter to navigate, there are nice yellow boxes around the named focus order items, and the course navigates well.
But I've spent some time yesterday with a JAWS user, and the experience is frankly awful. It seems as though JAWS is picking up items that aren't included on the focus order, but are visible on-screen. Or, it's picking up item names from the timeline, even though we've given them all custom titles in 'Focus Order'.
We also found some major problems with free form quizzing, where in one course it was claiming the item was already selected, and on another, stating it wasn't selected.
As a result, I'm dead-ending learners who can't continue because they don't understand the quizzing interaction.
I know this is a journey and improvements are being made all the time, but is this just a quirk of how screen-readers work or is there any more that can be done?
Hello Joe!
Thank you for sharing exactly what you're seeing with your project! The experience can change slightly depending on which screen reader and browser you are using. However, I am concerned if the screen reader is announcing items incorrectly like sharing that one item is selected if it isn't.
When navigating through a course, you can use the Tab key to move to interactive elements like buttons or links. The Space bar is used for selecting an item, but the up and down arrows are most used if you're moving line by line or item by item in a Storyline course.
If JAWS is picking up items that aren't included in the focus order, it would be helpful to see your .story file. Do you mind sharing it in this discussion or privately in a support case?
Hi Lauren,
Thanks for coming back to me. I'll anonymise a couple of the slides and submit a case. It's a bit tricky as I don't have a JAWS license myself, so I'm somewhat at the mercy of only getting feedback when I can sit with the learner. The free-form quiz options being read out as 'selected' (even though it wasn't yet) was particularly odd, but may be a difference in how Storyline perceives the state, versus the screen reader.
The naming of items was my biggest concern and perhaps that's a misunderstanding on my part, but I assumed the purpose of the 'Alternative Text' was to give a full replacement. So e.g.:
Shape: 1.3 Data Knowledge Check - Text Box 2 "Q2. Which of the following...'I instead set to:
Alternative Text: 'Question two: Which of the following...'
Hi Joe,
Good call on opening a support case! You're in good hands, and a support engineer will be reaching out via email as soon as they complete testing the behavior you encountered!
