Storyline 360 not compliant with WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility guidelines

Apologies for the delay in replying to this thread, but I just want to come back and address the above points for the benefit of the wider Storyline user community.

PaulGlenn, you said “Unless I misunderstand the above information, Storyline 360 does, in fact, "support" WCAG 2.1, Level AA, even if it does not provide specific conformance to criteria 1.3.5 (Identify Input Purpose) and 3.1.2 (Language of Parts).” My answer is: “Yes, as long as you do not insert any input fields that should be identifiable by the browser (e.g. ‘Enter your name’ text-entry fields) and as long as you are only presenting content in one language and that is the default language of your webpage.

The problem is that Articulate has widely promoted the use of ‘Enter your name’ text entry fields (e.g. here and here), and many Storyline users are inserting them into their courses in order to personalise their courses or give learners a personalised certificate of completion. If you're someone who has inserted an ‘Enter your name’ text-entry field into your course (or any other text-entry field requiring user information that should be declared to the browser), then your course will not be compliant with WCAG 2.1 (Level AA).

Reading through the notes you linked to on the W3 Understanding Conformance page, what they are saying is that if a course includes an element that is not accessible (e.g. an ‘Enter your name’ text-entry box), then it can be ignored in the accessibility assessment, as long as it is not relied upon (as highlighted by MathNotermans-9). That is, there must be an alternative way for the learner to access the same function/information in an accessible way. Since Storyline does not provide any way for you to identify the purpose of the text-entry field (i.e. specify that the field requires the user’s ‘name’ or the user’s ‘email address’ so that this can be identified by the browser), then there is no way to provide an accessible alternative to the text-entry field using Storyline alone. You could get creative trying to embed other technologies into your Storyline course (maybe using the web object feature), but you cannot achieve accessibility compliance with Storyline alone.

My purpose in this thread was to ask Articulate to make this limitation clear to its users, instead of misleading people with the false blanket claim here that ‘Storyline 360 supports WCAG 2.1 Level AA’. And although LeslieMcKerchie from the Articulate team confirmed above that a feature request has been logged which would enable criterion 1.3.5 to be met, it is still not appearing on the Feature roadmap, even after 2 years. 

Am I disappointed that Articulate is not being transparent with its current and future customers about the software’s limitations? Yes. Am I annoyed that they are not taking this issue more seriously? Absolutely. Am I surprised? Not really. I’ve been wasting my time trying to help the Articulate team recognise and fix bugs for over 10 years now. As you can see from this thread, it takes enormous effort to even get them to recognise, let along fix any issue. But I just thought the community ought to know the truth, rather than assuming that Storyline allows them to create courses that meet all of the WCAG 2.1 (Level AA) criteria.

I'm just posting my reply again, as it seems it was deleted by the Articulate team after it was published and received 'Likes' from other users... LeslieMcKerchie, would you care to respond to this message this time, rather than deleting it? An update on the feature roadmap would be much appreciated. 

Apologies for the delay in replying to this thread, but I just want to come back and address the above points for the benefit of the wider Storyline user community.

PaulGlenn, you said “Unless I misunderstand the above information, Storyline 360 does, in fact, "support" WCAG 2.1, Level AA, even if it does not provide specific conformance to criteria 1.3.5 (Identify Input Purpose) and 3.1.2 (Language of Parts).” My answer is: “Yes, as long as you do not insert any input fields that should be identifiable by the browser (e.g. ‘Enter your name’ text-entry fields) and as long as you are only presenting content in one language and that is the default language of your webpage.

The problem is that Articulate has widely promoted the use of ‘Enter your name’ text entry fields (e.g. here and here), and many Storyline users are inserting them into their courses in order to personalise their courses or give learners a personalised certificate of completion. If you're someone who has inserted an ‘Enter your name’ text-entry field into your course (or any other text-entry field requiring user information that should be declared to the browser), then your course will not be compliant with WCAG 2.1 (Level AA).

Reading through the notes you linked to on the W3 Understanding Conformance page, what they are saying is that if a course includes an element that is not accessible (e.g. an ‘Enter your name’ text-entry box), then it can be ignored in the accessibility assessment, as long as it is not relied upon (as highlighted by MathNotermans-9). That is, there must be an alternative way for the learner to access the same function/information in an accessible way. Since Storyline does not provide any way for you to identify the purpose of the text-entry field (i.e. specify that the field requires the user’s ‘name’ or the user’s ‘email address’ so that this can be identified by the browser), then there is no way to provide an accessible alternative to the text-entry field using Storyline alone. You could get creative trying to embed other technologies into your Storyline course (maybe using the web object feature), but you cannot achieve accessibility compliance with Storyline alone.

My purpose in this thread was to ask Articulate to make this limitation clear to its users, instead of misleading people with the false blanket claim here that ‘Storyline 360 supports WCAG 2.1 Level AA’. And although LeslieMcKerchie from the Articulate team confirmed above that a feature request has been logged which would enable criterion 1.3.5 to be met, it is still not appearing on the Feature roadmap, even after 2 years. 

Am I disappointed that Articulate is not being transparent with its current and future customers about the software’s limitations? Yes. Am I annoyed that they are not taking this issue more seriously? Absolutely. Am I surprised? Not really. I’ve been wasting my time trying to help the Articulate team recognise and fix bugs for over 10 years now. As you can see from this thread, it takes enormous effort to even get them to recognise, let along fix any issue. But I just thought the community ought to know the truth, rather than assuming that Storyline allows them to create courses that meet all of the WCAG 2.1 (Level AA) criteria.