RISE - accessibility features

Jan 22, 2018

One year ago there was a discussion around accessibility -  WCAG AA, WAI-ARIA Labels, Section 508, DDA, Equality Act and Screen Reader Supports.

It was noted that Articulate were working on this and that there would be further developments in this regard. Have the accessibility issues been addressed. This is important for me as I am about to develop a course and would like to use RISE rather than Storyline. 

Thank you 

 

 

124 Replies
Ashley Hill

Good morning,

In September, we had an accessibility check conducted on one of our Rise courses. A number of issues were flagged, including in relation to colour contrast which I thought had been addressed. Some other issues include:

- colour contrast is fine for main text but is insufficient when it changes on mouse hover

- all pages are missing a page title

- sequence that screen readers read out content is often different from the visual presentation on the page

- links for screen readers directing to the wrong location (e.g. 'skip to main content' link directs to course menu, not main content)

- repetition in reading out some headings when using a screen reader

- screen reader links do not adequately describe their function (e.g. show/hide button reads out show/hide but does not explain what will be shown/hidden)

- no option to add alt text to logos

- screen readers cannot select radio buttons in multiple choice knowledge checks (pressing the space bar or enter key triggers the course menu button)

- radio buttons are too small

- quiz results are read multiple times when using a screen reader (e.g. "Your score Your score 47% Your score 47% 47%")

We love how simple it is to build beautiful, interactive courses in Rise, but like many others, if accessibility guidelines aren't met by the end of the year as promised, we're going to have to start using something like H5P instead. 

I'd be happy to share the full accessibility report if that would be helpful. Our consultants have even explained how each issue can be fixed.

At some stage it would also be really useful if you could provide a list of which block types are accessible and which aren't (like H5P does: https://h5p.org/documentation/installation/content-type-accessibility)

Thank you.

Kind regards,

Ashley

SibaPrasad Padhi

Good findings Ashley, in this area of accessibility this is one of the most important function to design a Training for specific audiences. Why is this taking more than 3 years to provide these important features as per the eLearning guidelines. Articulate should implement these on priority basis, as always the answer to this is not positive and the end user were suffering to consume the content designed with the tool. Can we have a specific guidelines how to use blocks supported for accessibility purpose. And why is its taking so much time to remove the lesson header/customization?

Renz Sevilla

Hi, folks! Rise 360 isn't fully accessible yet, but we're working hard to reach our goal of meeting WCAG 2.1 guidelines. We put together a journal where you can find all the details on the features we’ve enhanced in Rise 360 so far, and we’ll keep this journal updated as we continue our accessibility journey.

Rise 360: Our Accessibility Journey

Check out these articles for details on how to use alt text for images and keyboard-accessible navigation.

Rise 360: How to Add Alternate Text to Images
Rise 360: Keyboard-Accessible Navigation

Finally, we're currently working on screen reader support for Rise 360, but that feature isn't ready yet. If you use a screen reader on a Rise 360 course now, you may find that it doesn't perform well. 

Ashley: We truly appreciate the detailed feedback you provided, and we welcome more of the same from the community. I'm going to share your list with our accessibility team to be sure we address your concerns as we make further accessibility enhancements.

Marvie Mulder

Hi Ashley!

Thanks so much for taking the time to post the accessibility check that was conducted on one of your Rise courses. This is very useful and helpful information to us.

While Rise 360 courses are not officially WCAG 2.1 compliant, we have been working hard in this direction. That being said, I'd like to follow through with your feedback, starting with items I can address:

  • All pages are missing a page title
    • We do have titles for each page (lesson). You can easily verify this by looking at your browser tab. It will say your `CourseTitle - Lesson Title | Rise 360`. Our title is dynamically handled. You can check this in your browser's element inspector.
  • Sequence that screen readers read out content is often different from the visual presentation on the page
    • Yes, you may find in places such as Course Overview banner, or the Lesson header region, the announcement order may differ from the visual order (top to bottom) you see on your screen. For example, in Course Overview, it is announced in the following order: Course Title -> Author -> Start / Details button.

      This is intentional. The order of the elements in which it is announced is based on its importance, when it is applicable. We wanted it to be more intuitive for screen reader users and make the experience more optimal and at par with the experience of sighted users as much as we can. Aside from the course title being the most important information in the page, it is also the first thing that catches your eyes. We want to give the same experience for people who are dependent on screen readers. 

      If you are referring to other places that doesn't make sense to you, please do let me know. I'll be more than happy to look in to it.
  • Screen readers cannot select radio buttons in multiple choice knowledge checks (pressing the space bar or enter key triggers the course menu button) 
    Quiz results are read multiple times when using a screen reader (e.g. "Your score Your score 47% Your score 47% 47%")
    • We recently addressed all accessibility issues for Knowledge Check and Quiz. These shouldn't be a problem anymore.
  • Radio buttons are too small
    • Radio buttons we use in Multiple Choice (Quiz & Knowledge Check) are of web standard size. You can check and compare it against radio buttons found in accessibility-focused websites such as www.webaim.org or https://www.w3.org/

And here are my follow-up questions for the remaining items to help me identify the problem:

  • Links for screen readers directing to the wrong location (e.g. 'skip to main content' link directs to course menu, not main content)
    • `Skip to lesson` link when activated should throw your screen reader focus to the Lesson content main region, particularly the hamburger menu since it's the first interactive element in the page. Is this not the case? What are the other links that goes to the wrong location and what are the steps to repro?
  • Repetition in reading out some headings when using a screen reader
    • What are these headings? Are they Lesson titles, or particular blocks? If you can give me more information, I'd be more than happy to look in to it.
  • Screen reader links do not adequately describe their function (e.g. show/hide button reads out show/hide but does not explain what will be shown/hidden)
    • Toggle buttons such as the hamburger menu that expands & collapse the sidebar, the section headers found on the side bar, the state of the accordion interaction, as examples, are all communicated meaningfully through a screen reader. May I ask what particular buttons that doesn't describe their function? I'm guessing that you may have encountered this in interactive blocks that are not particularly accessible for the time being.

Cheers!

Marvie

Ashley Hill

Hi Marvie,

Thanks for responding to my post. It’s really great to see that Articulate is seriously addressing the community’s accessibility concerns. Other than the accessibility issues, we are really happy with Rise as an e-learning product. Our team had zero e-learning experience before we started working in Rise and yet it’s been so easy for us to build great looking e-learning courses.

One thing that would be really helpful in the interim, before you do comply with WCAG 2.1 AA, would be for you to provide a list of accessible and inaccessible block types. Sharon English provided a partial list, based on her experience, a couple of years ago: https://community.articulate.com/discussions/rise-360/rise-accessibility-features It would be incredibly useful if Rise could provide an updated list, based on your own testing. I know that we can build courses that are mostly accessible using Rise, we just need to know which block types to avoid. That said, we are really hoping to be able to use all block types in the future. The interactive block types are our favourites so we’re really hoping you can figure out a way to make them accessible.

I have sent an email with a detailed response to each of your responses above. Please email me directly if you have any questions/comments.

Kind regards,

Ashley

 
Amphi AB

Hi Alyssa! I would also love a breakdown of what blocks at the moment is considered inaccessible. Then we could future-proof what we produce at the moment since almost all of our client work at the moment are public bodies. So really important that we get It right! Could you help with that you think?

Matt Schneider

Hi Alyssa, 

Would it be possible to provide a link to a document that captures the information you sent to Ashley regarding accessible and inaccessible block types?  My University is requiring that all of our courses comply with WCAG 2.1 AA standards starting on January 1st, 2021.  Having this information and a product road map would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

 

Alyssa Gomez

Hello everyone! I’m happy to share our Rise 360 Accessibility Collection, which includes the VPAT to describe how Rise 360 conforms to WCAG 2.1 Level AA criteria.

We also updated our roadmap to include Rise 360 features we’re continuing to develop to better support WCAG.

Let me know your questions and experiences building accessible courses for all!

Thomas Lehning

Dear Colette, thank you for your post! Dear Articulate, thank you for your updates in AC and the provided  new informations. We have the order from our clients to review and rework rise courses, that has been totally stopped for AC-concerns. (see attached document - red crosses) Perhaps I got you wrong so I ask. Are there any updates or new additional AC-features planned for the end of 2020? For us it seems that a AC rework will be a problem and not entirely possible on the status quo. It would be really great, if you could show us producers some visual examples. Thank you for informations on this. Best! Thomas