Adjust the size of the audio block play button?

May 24, 2019

Hi,

I have several Audio files in a Rise course which works fine.

The general feedback when testing is that the Audio play button is difficult to see. The Audio seek bar and Play button are very small,

Can this be adjusted to be larger?

28 Replies
Lea Agato

Hi Logan! Thanks for adding your voice. We're tracking requests for this feature and we'll let you know here if we make changes that will help.  

In the meantime, you can try adding captions with big fonts and changing the background color to make the audio block more visible.  Check out my sample below:

I hope this helps!

 

Logan Stahler

Hi Lea-

Thanks for the tip - the block standing out isn't the issue, it's the tiny size of the play button and that we are dealing with users who may have vision issues and technical deficiencies. They likely know what a play button looks like, but may easily overlook it given its current size! I hope the team pushed this request forward, and soon!

-Logan 

Cat Korpela

I'm just adding my two cents' to this discussion. I've had the same feedback from my clients. I currently have to put a large heading in the block above (AUDIO (click the arrow ► below to play) but it's not an ideal solution. I agree that users with vision problems and/or low technical skills may find it challenging to find the play button. I hope this will become a feature we can change soon!

Logan Stahler

Cat - my workaround was to create a Storyline "player" for my audio files which I then embedded into the course (see image below).

The build is simple - the play button area has a hotspot over it which plays the audio track when clicked. It also shows a new layer (a duplicate of the base but with a pause button instead of a play button). When that layer's hotspot is clicked, it pauses the audio and hides that layer so the base layer/play button appears. You can toggle between play/pause like any audio player.

Here's a screenshot of the player in line with other content. The client was very happy with it. 

 

I hope this helps others!

-Logan

Anouk Berger

I would like to add that I have had the same feedback from users, they wish the play button was bigger.

Besides, I believe we cannot change its colors, and with a darker background it is barely visible, so giving the option to change the color (or maybe toggle between a light and dark theme?) would be great!

Eric Fox

The tiny audio play button in Rise is terrible for both usability and accessibility, particularly on touchscreens. The usability experts at the Nielsen Norman Group recommend that interactive elements on touchscreens be at least  0.4in × 0.4in (see https://www.nngroup.com/articles/touch-target-size/). The Rise audio button is nowhere near that size and is extremely difficult to touch on mobile devices. This should be fixed throughout the platform as soon as possible, particularly if Articulate is going to claim to care about accessibility. Right now, your audio button (a pretty important component of most elearning courses) is not even accessible to people with, y'know, human fingers.

Kelley Durdella

Hey Logan! This thread about audio was from awhile ago, but I wanted to see if you came up with any new/better audio hacks. I am super disappointed in the audio features in Rise.

I tried your workaround and I really like it, but it is still really big on the page despite shrinking down the slide size, eliminating padding, etc. 

I also would love to do the card sort with audio but can't think of a way to do that. :(

 

Anyway, I was just curious if you figured anything else out!

Eric Fox

It really is disappointing that Articulate has not fixed this yet. This is such low-hanging fruit to improve the accessibility and usability of a very common and important component of many elearning courses. Four and a half years later and Articulate can't figure out how to increase the size of a button? It tells me one or more of the following is true: 1) Articulate does not really care about the accessibility and usability of their products, 2) Articulate does not really care about the feedback provided by their users, or 3) Articulate is secretly owned and managed by Elon Musk, who has fired all of their competent engineers and designers and will be changing the product's name to "X-Learn" soon.

Mediafarm As

Completely agree on this request. Sadly, the way this is handled by Articulate is the rule and not the exception. Articulate fails to listen to their users and even the simplest and most obvious requests/issues is hardly ever fixed. The "solutions" given by support is just, at best, awkward workarounds. I guess they have very few developers working on improvements, as very little functionality is added over the years.
I worked with many great developers that implement feedback quickly and keeps the user-mass in the beta-loop to improve new functionality. Sadly, Articulate is not one of them.