Forum Discussion
Storyline and JAWS - setting course up and testing with JAWS
We have a course for a client that needs to be 508 compliant. We've been learning Storyline along with the rest of you (and likely, not as quickly), and trying to set it up correctly to also be 508 compliant. The closed captioning is set up and working based on following tutorials from this community ("Generating Closed Captions" - thank you Steve Flowers!).
Our issue is in getting JAWS to read the course - I'm not sure if it's an LMS issue, or pieces I need to set up in Storyline that I haven't done.
We have tried to have a user who is blind test a sample of the course (5 slides) using JAWS on our LMS and also on ScormCloud. Each time she has tried, she has not been able to get farther than pressing enter to view the course and hearing:
~ the name of the course
~scormdriver_content frame
~scormdriver_content frame end
She tried pressing enter on each thing and nothing would start the course.
Our LMS employee tried to set the course start in a new window, and downloaded JAWS to test on his end. His response was: She is right that nothing plays initially. What she couldn't know is that Jaws is able to read some of the content. When I click on the buttons or Nav links, Jaws reads the buttons. It also reads the titles when I navigate the menu (it reads what I click on though, doesn't read it ahead of time.) When I use the slash key, JAWS Tells me there are no clickable buttons. It doesn't read any of the content either.
I submitted a support case to Articulate to see if there are steps we are missing in the course. I gave the LMS person's response above. After a couple back and forths, the response I have from Articulate is: JAWS will only read the items that are highlighted. It won't read anything ahead. If it did read anything ahead, it would clash with the narration that is already on each slide & only confuse the end-user even more. Finally, our output doesn't support the Slash key in the sense that the slash key will move to the next clickable item. This shortcut key is typically associated with HTML content.
Honestly, I'm still lost. I've looked at all the tutorials I can find, and I'm just not seeing the post that makes it all click and make sense. I realize we must be missing several things here.
Is there someone that has knowledge of working with JAWS that would be willing to either give suggestions or test our sample (published or storyline format) to see what we are missing?
- Are there variables or triggers I need to place in the course specifically related to JAWS - ex. keystrokes, and if so, do those go on the master slides?
- Our course currently has 7 scenes, and within each scene the slides advance automatically. For JAWS, do they instead need to advance by user?
- From what I'm seeing in other posts, someone using JAWS needs to be able to turn the audio off, correct?
- Our quiz questions are all true/false or multiple choice.
- Our full course is about 80 slides (a 40 minute course) with full audio, and 2 1 minute videos at the beginning.
Would greatly appreciate your help.
Thanks Dom for sharing that here, and I do believe that JAWS only offers support for the latest version of IE and the latest version of JAWS - I'm not sure about the NVDA and OSX support options - but you'll also want to confirm you're viewing Storyline content in our documented/supported browsers here.
I work for the government so accessibility is a must. I am having the same problem that Laura Davies originally posted about. I have the course set up but JAWS doesn't recognize or read the content, whether I press Tab, enter, arrow, or other keys one might expect to trigger JAWS to start reading. It reads the URL out loud, names of IE tabs, name of the module, and if I use a mouse (not allowed-everything has to be keyboard accessible) I can get JAWS to read some of the text boxes on the screen. It just keeps saying "tab" out loud every time I press tab, but doesn't go to the various tab-ordered elements on the screen, including the navigation/player. While I'm a sighted user, I've taken JAWS classes and test with JAWS, so I know a bit about how this should work. It is not straightforward.
Dom-what did you learn from your work experience student? What's the trick to getting JAWS to read the module content to screen reader users?
Hi, Susan -- Thanks for reaching out, and I see that you have directed a question to Dom. Since a bit of time has passed since the last activity in this discussion, it's possible that he may no longer be subscribed. If you'd like to reach out to him directly, please feel free to do so via the 'Contact Me' link on his profile page.
Thank you!
OMGosh thank you.
Happy to help, Susan!
(accidental delete)
This problem remains for us, currently using Articulate 3.Hi Eric and welcome to E-Learning Heroes :)
Looks like you deleted your first post and this thread is a bit dated.
Could you share some details about the problem you are experiencing?
Hi Leslie
I posted this in another thread but really need a quick answer
I'm using SL360 latest version, JAWS version for testing.
For Multiple choice questions, Jaws is reading the option in normal state (no radio button selected) but once the radio button is selected it won't announce it is selected.I saw there was a bug logged for SL3 but is there one also logged for SL360 and is there a workaround? I'm on a deadline and have 3 modules all with MC quiz assessments that need to be accessible - HELP...
Hey Wendy! Happy to help. 😁
We were seeing a bug like this in Storyline 360, but we released a fix for it in Update 10.
Could you test this sample file using JAWS and let me know if you hear it announce the radio button as selected?
I tested in Internet Explorer, and when I tabbed to a selected answer choice, JAWS announced, "Radio button checked." Here's a screen recording of my testing.
Let me know if you're seeing something different!
Hey Alyssa
your test file works fine but when I download and run the sample file through I get this.
I don't get the instruction to use up/down arrows (when I click the up/down arrows nothing happens) like you do to make a selection, I use enter, which changes the radio button to selected but there is no announcement unless I go through rest of tab order and come back to the selected option.
With my SL360 file it is an upgraded SL2 file could that be making any difference?
Thanks for that Peek, Wendy. It sounds like you're thinking JAWS should announce "Radio button selected" as soon as a user selects it, correct? I'm not totally clear on what the expected behavior here is, so I'm going to do some testing with my team. As soon as I have more to share, I'll pop back in!
Hi Alyssa
yes I am otherwise how do they know the option they have selected has been actioned - at the moment unless they tab all the way through past the Submit and back again? Could definitely be me that's wrong...really appreciate you looking into it.
Also your file announces to use Up/Down arrow to select the radio button, when I play your file it doesn't.
