Forum Discussion
Storyline 360 Update 99
This is a good step but there should be a setting that lets me tell Storyline that whenever I add an image to a slide, the AI should automatically add ALT text to it.
The tedium of making Storyline courses WCAG compliant must be reduced by a factor of...well, I don't know the exact amount, but it needs to come down by A LOT in order for it to really be practical to implement all of the necessary accommodations. That means automating everything that can possibly be automated. Automatic insertion of ALT text seems like "low-hanging fruit" in this regard. Don't make me authorize AI-generated ALT text for every individual image. Just let the AI take care of this whenever I add an image to a slide.
NOTE: this philosophy also applies to audio and video. Whenever I add an audio file to a slide, an AI process should kick off that automatically generates closed captions for me. Whenever I add a video to a slide, it likewise should automatically get closed-captioned. Additionally, it should get an AI-voiced audio description of its contents.
You can take this automation further still and I urge you to do so. For example, when I create any object off-slide (e.g., in the margin to the left or right of the slide) the Object is visible to accessibility tools should default to unchecked to mimic the fact that such objects would not be visible to sighted learners in the published output. Likewise, if I drag this object onto the slide, Storyline should automatically switch the object's visibility to accessibility tools to visible to match that objects on the slide are visible to sighted learners in the published output.
It's great that Storyline gives me the ability to edit ALT tags, closed captions, and object visibility to accessibility tools--but that is only the bare minimum. What is really needed is to automate as many of the accessibility and localization decisions as possible so that I only have to edit these things if I don't like what the AI generated. That would save a huge amount of time and tedium, and it seems you have most of the core technology already implemented in Storyline now, so please take a hard look at how much you can automate for us.
RayCole-2d64185 Thank you for taking the time to leave this feedback. I agree that there is a lot more we can do to ease the creation of WCAG compliant courses, and we're only getting started. We want to be very deliberate and iterative with our approach here, ensuring that the AI we add is truly valuable and useful to authors before taking measures like having it automatically create alt text for all images. We also feel that it's important for authors to review all AI generated accessibility content for accuracy and to ensure it fits the needs of that particular course.
The Accessibility Checker tool we plan to release soon has been designed to make it easier than ever to identify and resolve a11y issues in your course. The initial version of this tool won't solve every problem you have, but we will be listening to feedback and continuing to evolve it over time to make it as useful as possible.
As for the "Object is visible to accessibility tools" option: you're completely correct. We need to improve how this works and are considering some options.
Thank you again for the feedback, I truly appreciate it.
Thanks for the reply! I am eagerly-awaiting the accessibility checker.
Some really great ideas there, particularly the 'object off-slide' idea - brilliant.
My personal preference would be a toggle for the "Don't make me authorize AI-generated ALT text for every individual image" feature mentioned. 99% of images used in my modules are purely decorative and I wish there was a setting whereby they could automatically be added with the Accessibility toggled off by default, so I could then manually (or with AI) add Alt text when required.
Also, it would be great if the Focus Order dialog box had a "Reverse Order" button because I do not know why so many items are listed in an 'ascending' manner when I intended things to be tabbed to in a descending order. It would save so much time, just like the ability to now drag a bunch of items instead of individually.
I absolutely agree that the alt-text checkbox workflow is a problem; but I think the solution is better made in the timeline than on slide/canvas area. My team puts a lot of additional, screen-reader accessible text off-screen specifically to make up for the lost visual information, and we would be forced to turn a lot of information back on if there was any automated function.
If the checkbox was in the timeline, beside the blindboxes and locks, you could select all of the off-slide content and uncheck them in one go. Critically, having the checkbox at the surface matters to reduce the tedium.
