Forum Discussion
Making a scroll bar keyboard accessible
Oh hi Ashley, would you know if the scroll panel could be called with a javascript? or are the Articulate team working on making the scroll panel accessible. these scroll panels play an important roll in our templates and complete keyboard accessibility is becoming an important matter with the compliance standards.
Thanks
Byron
Hi Byron,
Did you end up finding a javascript solution to keyboard accessibility of scrollbar in layers? We are stuck with getting a course approved due to accessibility compliance standards.
Thanks for any info you can provide on solutions to scrolling and keyboard accessibility that have worked for you!
Ana
HI Ana, our current work-around (or work towards) is placing all essential screen text in the alt-tag of one selectable 'dummy' element on the page under the scrollbar and turn all the other elements' alt tags off, except for the essential navigational items off course.
The slide is then not necessarily inclusive(as per UDL principles) but is accessible, as assistive technology will be able to read what is on the page, as it is copied in the alt tag of the 'dummy' element. My idea is that those with no or bad vision will still be able to have the textual content read out to them, those with contrast issues can use the scroll as normal, those with bad hearing can read the scroll as normal, I believe that those with assistive technology for navigation can scroll using the keyboard as log as you leave the alt tag for the scroll entry field in existence.
Not the nicest solution but it should pass, depending on how stringent they are, I believe that most accessibility is governed by guidelines not rules and there is or should be flexibility based on reason and show willingness to find solution in design. Alternatively you could turn all the alt tags off and use notes as a transcript layer, but I believe the user would have to activate it via a button, the effect is more or less the same. Using transcript is more common when using video with audio.
It's definitely not ideal and we consider steps like these, steps towards full accessibility limited by the application. The last alternative is to re-design the slide, place the text in layers or mimic a 'static' scroll bar through the use of layers.
Can't wait for Articulate to fix this painful problem, we just need to be able to alt-tag items in the scroll and the scroll to move when you tab through these items:)