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.
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.
