Forum Discussion
Screen reader and alt txt
I agree with you GiovanniFinotto . And that's not what I was describing.
I take a different approach. Considering that visually impaired learners will never “see” the images, whether synchronized or not, and considering that learners using screen readers “to give themselves time” to see (the images), hear (the audio), and understand (the interaction between images and audio), I will only describe the FIRST image-context in the alt text, which will also describe the following image(s) and how/why they appear.
Or, using another technique I use in my last project I mentioned , I provide a transcript of the audio, interspersed with descriptions of the images that appear in sync with the audio, in the “Comment” panel (or whatever name you want to give it), which opens on the left side of the screen (instead of the default Menu panel). Is that clear enough?
In short, give the learner a general but meaningful overview of the whole, not every detail. I don't have THE solution, this is just my suggestion. Thierry
Hi ThierryEmmanuel,
thank you very much, the answer is truly complete and interesting. I really like the second tip, which is really useful.
My doubt remains about the use of images synchronized with the video which, to be "described", would lead the user to block the video many times and make the lesson much longer than expected.
I greatly reduce the use of alternative text for this reason too.
I agree with you GiovanniFinotto . And that's not what I was describing.
I take a different approach. Considering that visually impaired learners will never “see” the images, whether synchronized or not, and considering that learners using screen readers “to give themselves time” to see (the images), hear (the audio), and understand (the interaction between images and audio), I will only describe the FIRST image-context in the alt text, which will also describe the following image(s) and how/why they appear.
Or, using another technique I use in my last project I mentioned , I provide a transcript of the audio, interspersed with descriptions of the images that appear in sync with the audio, in the “Comment” panel (or whatever name you want to give it), which opens on the left side of the screen (instead of the default Menu panel). Is that clear enough?
In short, give the learner a general but meaningful overview of the whole, not every detail. I don't have THE solution, this is just my suggestion. Thierry
I understand what you mean well, in fact I also provide subtitles synchronized with the video and complete transcriptions. I also really like the idea of using the "comment panel". Thank you, it is always useful to discuss and learn about other people's methodologies. Thanks. I am left with the first perplexity about how to bind the focus of the screen reader to the slide and not to the entire web context, but there is probably a setting in the screen reader that I don't know. Thanks again.
Hi GiovanniFinotto,
Great question, and thanks to ThierryEMMANUEL for sharing such thoughtful suggestions.
The suggestion of letting learners control playback with a Play button is right on the mark. Storyline doesn’t detect when a screen reader is active, so it can’t automatically pause a video. Setting the video to Play video: From trigger helps avoid overlapping audio and keeps the experience accessible.
Your idea for automatic detection is a good one. I’ll share it with our team as a feature request to help improve accessibility in future updates.
You can also connect with us privately in a support case if you want us to review your setup together.
You're welcome, GiovanniFinotto . And sorry for the late reply (but maybe you've had enough of me!), but I wasn't notified of your comment, probably because you didn't use the @ symbol in the text to tag me, as EricSantos did and as I did.
Regarding your last concern, I must admit that I have never reproduced this problem. On each slide?? When I go from screen to screen in a module, the focus is used precisely to prevent the selection from being lost “outside” the module, but remains on the slide. So, as far as I know, you don't have to force SL's focus on the slide (fortunately). Perhaps it's because of the screen reader (???) or maybe you're describing another “symptom” that is different from the real problem.sorry ThierryEMMANUEL and EricSantos for the delay in my response to all of you. Thank you very much for your valuable advice. you helped me understand how to improve my product!
