Forum Discussion
Screen Reader Accessibility for Button States
Hi there,
I'm having some trouble implementing accessibility for my Pick Many activities. Screen readers do not seem to recognize the difference between a Normal state and a Selected state of a button
I have a multiple choice question where the user can select more than one answer. I've made Normal state alt texts (Option 1, Option 2, Option 3, Option 4) and I've made Selected state alt texts (Option 1 Selected, Option 2 Selected, Option 3 Selected, Option 4 Selected). This way, a visually impaired user can know which answers he/she has already chosen before selecting the Next/Submit button.
It doesn't work though and the screen reader just reads the normal alt texts. Is there a solution around this? Thanks!
Hi, all!
I have some great news to share! We just released a new version of Storyline 360 (Update 103), which included a fix for the issue where screen readers didn't always announce the visited state of buttons or shapes.
To take advantage of this update, simply launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer and click the Update button next to Storyline 360. You'll find step-by-step instructions here.
Please let us know if you have any questions by posting here or reaching out to our Support Engineers directly. We'll be happy to help!
90 Replies
Hello Cristina!
Good question! We haven't released an update for Storyline 3 with these enhancements. We released Update 7 for Storyline on September 10th.
does this work for reading content on layers that are shown when a button is clicked?
Hi Yuna!
This fix should be present with layers as well! Great question!
Does this mean that if the states had different alt text than the tab order alt text, the states alt text won't be read? For example, in a selected state, I have "......info reviewed." Should this still be read by JAWS?
Hi Ellen,
Great question! With Update 34, objects that have multiple states should have the appropriate alt text narrated from the tab order. If an object doesn’t have alternate text, screen readers will read the name of that object as it appears in the timeline.
Hi Everyone,
Thank you all for continuing to share the crucial need for creating accessible content for all learners. While more work remains, we're at a point where we're confident the work done so far delivers meaningful real-world improvements for learners with accessibility needs. I've included links below where you can find all the details on what this means for Storyline 360 Update 36:
You'll also find our general FAQ on accessibility in Articulate 360 tools here.
This release makes it significantly easier for those users to perceive, operate, and understand content published with Storyline, while opening up more choices of browser, assistive technology, and devices for the first time. Learners will benefit from the vast majority of these improvements, even when the course author is not designing their course for accessibility.
If you have any questions or concerns, let us know here or reach out to our Support team. We know there is more to do, so we'll continue to keep you posted about future releases.
Hi all,
I am still experiencing situations where the screen reader is not reading alt text for the built-in Selected state, however, it is reading the alt text from a custom "on" state. Is anyone else experiencing this? I am on the latest version released today.
Hi Susan, we are experiencing the same issue and opened a case. JAWS reads any custom state we create and apply alt text to, but it does not read the alt text of the built-in state (aside from the normal state). So if we use the Visited state, add alt text, apply a trigger to change it to visited once clicked, tab to trigger it, tab back and only the normal state alt text reads. However the same steps work successfully for custom states.
Thanks Jackie. Sorry you are having the same issue but I am glad I am not alone. Looking forward to Storyline being fully accessible.
Hi Jackie,
I'm sorry you're running into this! Thanks for jumping in here as well and letting us know this is still an open issue. It looks like my teammate, Lauren, let you know this is a bug that we have logged and are keeping it on our radar.
We'll be sure to let everyone know when any progress has been made.
Hi Everyone,
I have good news!
I am happy to share that we just released the newest version of Storyline 360 Build 3.37.21453.0, which fixed the issue where screen readers would only read the normal state of an object.
The next step is to update Storyline 360 by heading to your Articulate 360 desktop app and clicking "Update" next to Storyline 360.
As always, we are happy to answer any questions you have by posting in this discussion, or you can contact our Support Engineers directly.
Hello,
I have buttons with visited states and NVDA does not read the visited state for standard button, but it reads it for "buttons" created from an image. The file was made in latest Storyline 360.
Please can you test the attached file and give a solution for standard buttons.
