Forum Discussion
RISE - accessibility features
One year ago there was a discussion around accessibility - WCAG AA, WAI-ARIA Labels, Section 508, DDA, Equality Act and Screen Reader Supports.
It was noted that Articulate were working on this and that there would be further developments in this regard. Have the accessibility issues been addressed. This is important for me as I am about to develop a course and would like to use RISE rather than Storyline.
Thank you
Hi Ashely - any update with the WCAG compliance?
Hi Virginia,
No news yet, but once we have an update I promise we'll share in these ELH discussions and update our Rise Version history, and our “What’s New” page.
In my experience, one of the greatest problems with RISE and accessibility is the low contrast between text and background, and low contrast between triggers and background. In my limited experience I am finding that I cannot see features on the screen at all, such as radio buttons. The low contrast causes my eyes to strain, and I have pretty good vision. I find that the low contrast also makes the flash cards get skipped by users because they can't make out the outlines and the triggers on screen.
I disagree with the current low contrast fad in interface design that is trending with so many products. If normal-sighted people can't make out the radio buttons on screen, how are the visually impaired going to be able to make use of it?
I appreciate you sharing your experience here with us, Jim and I know our team is working on some additional updates for accessibility. We'll let you know as soon as those features are ready and would love to hear additional insights on how we can improve!
Thanks, Jim! That's tremendously helpful, and I shared it with my team too. I know screen reader support is on the list and we do have keyboard accessible navigation as detailed here. I'll keep you posted on any other news or updates, and you can also keep an eye on the “What’s New” page and our Rise Version history for all the latest and greatest!
Love that story, Sharon and thank you for sharing!
Hi Ashley, Is there any update on the release date for screen readers being fully supported by Rise?
Hi, FSMTB. We don't have a release date for full screen reader support at this time.
Can interactions, such as flash cards and sorting be done by a blind user using a screen reader?
Hello, I'm using the "JAWSInspect" extension in firefox and I'm seeing unicode being added to the end of menu items. attached is a screenshot, has anyone heard of extra code being added to menus?
In this case it's
menuitem: Essential Information \ue93b"
it's like this for every item in the sidebar, is this part of a JAWS experience or the emulator?
Many thanks,
This is a great conversation on an important topic.
Could an audio clip be added at the top of a lesson's page to enable a person with a visual impairment to listen to the content?
Would a screen reader see the audio clip and provide a prompt for the individual to click to listen to the audio?
Sharon or anyone else who has tested accessibility in Rise, do you happen to know if Storyline blocks that are built to standard maintain their usability when imported to Rise?
Hi Elizabeth,
Rise doesn't currently fully support screen readers, so the Storyline blocks likely won't work either. There's some more information about accessibility here.
If there's anything else I can do to help, please let me know!
You could push for full accessibility... 😊
Hi Elizabeth - whilst Rise does not fully support screen readers, testing we've done with JAWS does (for the most part) work. Even if an authoring tool is classified as accessible, poor design can still result in a finished product that is not. For example, drag and drop activities. It is also important to remember that accessibility is for all disability types, not just for visual impairment. So Rise can work, you just need to really consider the design. The main issue in Rise is the lack of Heading styles (eg H1, H2 etc) which screen readers use for navigation purposes, and there are certain functions that screen readers tend to get stuck in (from memory, labelled diagram is one).
To answer your question in relation to Storyline blocks- the integrity of the block functionality has been maintained in all the testing we have done.
So adjustments to tab order and use of alt tags "sticks" in the Storyline block? That's the bulk of what I was thinking about.
