Forum Discussion
Screen Reader (JAWS) will not read states of buttons (visited or selected) and it can't access a hidden button that has turned normal
I am working on a project where users have to review 7 buttons before the "Next" button which is hidden, changes to normal and allows the user to move on. I have not been able to get JAWS to read o...
Hi everyone!
I have some great news to share! We just released another update for Storyline 360. In Update 81, we've included important fixes and new features.
One of the bugs we've fixed is:
- Screen readers didn't always follow the correct focus order around the player menu or hidden slide objects
Launch the Articulate 360 desktop app on your computer to take advantage of this update, and click the Update button next to Storyline 360. You'll find our step-by-step instructions here.
Please let me know if you need additional help!
Is there any movement on the second half of this issue? The one about built-in Visited and Selected states not being announced as visited or selected? My expectation would be they would work similarly to the built-in disabled state which reads the name of the button along with the word "unavailable." I would expect the built-in Visited and Selected states to read the name of the button followed by the word "visited" or "selected" so that we don't have to manually do that for all our buttons.
Is there a different discussion link that I should have bookmarked for the Visited/Selected issue?
Hi Michele,
Happy to assist!
The bug discussed in this where states aren't read by a screen reader has already been fixed in an earlier update of Storyline 360. In this published output of a single slide containing a single button that has both "visited" and "selected" states, I can confirm that NVDA screen reader was able to detect both states.
If you are experiencing different behavior for your objects, first make sure that you are running the latest available version of Storyline 360. Additionally, check to see if you have the alternative text for your buttons properly assigned as discussed in my previous response here. If your screen readers are still unable to detect the states, would you be willing to share a copy of your project file here or in private by opening a support case so we can take a closer look at what's happening? We'll delete it when we're done testing!
Hello! Yes, I understand that you can set buttons up to have these names read and that they will be read if you manually add alt text to the appropriate state. However, my expectation was that Articulate would fix this issue by making the alt text automatically use the word "visited" or "selected" in the appropriate the built-in states through code additions when published.
Meaning we wouldn't have to manually add/type the word "visited" in the alt text after every button name and "selected" in the alt text after every button name. That would save a lot of time. If this is not how Articulate intended to fix this issue, then let me know - if that is the case, I suspect I need to ask for a feature request?
Hi Michele!
Thanks for the clarification!
No need to create a feature request, as our development team already has one logged! This feature would allow Storyline to Automatically populate alt text for button states. I've added you to the feature report and will update this discussion as soon as we have news to share!
Have a great rest of your week!
