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.
I'm glad to see that Articulate has been working on accessibility for Rise. Thank you!
However, what I really want is a simple list of block types with a yes/no for full accessibility with keyboard and screen readers and any known accessibility issues listed.
Back in December I was so happy to see that there had finally seemed to be a lot of progress made in making Rise accessible and up to WCAG standards. Even though it seemed to only be partially there, I had a lot of hope in that it wouldn't be long before the outstanding components were addressed (based on the messaging I had saw)... It's now almost July and the last updated date on any of the Rise Accessibility docs remain as December 2020. I took a look at the roadmap link that was shared and was super disappointed to see that all Rise-related accessibility items that are outstanding are just listed as "planned", not even "in development"! These aren't just nice to have features, these are crucial features to ensuring proper access to Rise courses. I had thought Accessibility was a priority, but that seems to no longer be the case. Is there really nothing else currently in development for Rise other than quiz question banks?! Sure doesn't seem to be a whole lot to look forward to for the future of this product...
@Thomas - when you didn't pass your accessibility tests, did you have elements that were known as non-accessible (carousels, drag and drop, scenario, and flashcards)? I'm hoping to use Rise with the accessible blocks, and perhaps embed SL blocks for interactions that aren't currently accessible in Rise... thoughts? (not drag and drop, of course)
I agree with you Mark. It's hard to believe how long it is taking to have what seems like basic accessibility features available. I don't understand why blocks such as the flash cards and carousel still are only listed in the "planned" phase. These basic blocks are pretty crucial to creating engaging and interesting courses.
Definitely. I don't get how this product wasn't just built with accessibility in mind from the start... it was launched in late 2016, and accessibility was a known requirement for man back then. Would have made things much easier than now trying to retrofit everything.
Based on all the simple (but crucial) enhancement requests filling these forums that are years old and still haven't been implemented, I can't say I have much faith that the critical outstanding accessibility issues will be addressed anytime soon. Hope they prove me wrong, but for some reason the development of this product moves at a snail's pace and they show very little interest fulfilling the requests of their customers.
We've been following your recent comments regarding accessibility in Rise 360. To help with your planning, we’ve adjusted the status of the remaining block features on our roadmap to indicate “In Development” because we’ve reached a stage where we feel confident these blocks will fully support the WCAG 2.1 Success Criteria. I can’t share an ETA or a timeline right now, but we promise to keep you posted on our latest developments in our accessibility journey here.
Thank you for your commitment to accessible online learning and for allowing us to partner with you in achieving that goal!
Hi Jennifer, no - we only used intentionally "pure" elements as blocks. Our testing department had complaints with some navigational key elements (buttons, arrows and menues). The complaints come from ISO 16071 and other ac requirements. Unfortunately all interactive elements (carousels a.s.o) are not fulfilling our accessibility criterias at date. Best, Thomas
Hello. I just want to echo everyone else's comments. Accessibility is really important to us and we'd be really keen to see a clear roadmap from Articulate, with timelines included, that demonstrates a commitment to improving accessibility. We were disappointed by the December release. We were expecting much more significant changes. We've just had another round of testing done and despite using only accessible block types (which severely limits the interactivity of our courses), basic issues such as insufficient colour contrast and no page titles in code are still showing up as issues.
These are 5 years and taking more time to implement the accessibly feature to this product. as the primary design requirements for a eLearning product are accessibility and supporting customization on branding, we are still waiting for these 5 years except some small functionality improvement. One of such request is black theme for Rise, bullet points customization, Symbol library, block content alignment both text and image are still pending. Can these be implemented from Articulate?
Developers should not have to pick and choose less interactive or engaging elements to make sure it's accessible. Every feature should be accessible See Softchalk for an example of a content creation tool that has done an outstanding job of redesigning interactions to make them accessible and removing those that could not be made so. And they did it all within a couple of years.
It's great to see so many accessibility features "in development", but without a projected date, it's meaningless. It's like people being engaged but not setting a date for years.
Would love to hear an update on where things currently stand.
The "Accessibility Journey" page was last updated January 2021(!!).
Can we finally be provided some hard dates as to when the outstanding accessibility items (that had been promised for end of 2020) will finally be available? Our 360 licenses are up for renewal soon, and wondering if it's time to finally cut ties if these updates are going to take another 5 years to implement.
As noted above, the update to the accessibility features being changed from "planned" to "in development" was meaningless without a date attached, and was clearly just a superficial move that didn't actually change the priority or status in the backend. Surely at least one of those features should have been fully developed within the last 5 months??
Seems like priority to the few upgrades made to Rise are always given to the low value/low impact items that most customers will rarely use.
Can someone from the development team weigh-in here, instead of making one of the community reps once again do their standard blurb about no updates yet but they'll let us know once there are?
I agree wholeheartedly. There are some features of Rise that we really love (ease of use!) but we're also thinking we might not be able to continue with 360 beyond our current term if the accessibility issues aren't addressed. Beyond that, we're concerned that known issues in general seem to take years (if ever) to be fixed.
Perhaps we should start sharing the names of companies we're thinking about switching too...
Agreeing with Mark and Ashely here, too. I would love some solid information as well. Currently, we do use and recommend Storyline because you can *make* the content accessible but it is not simple, or seamless, and this is a turn off to some of the folx we train to use authoring tools to create learning experiences. Some of those folx then read the... highlights... that articulate shares about Rise and think it's a solution that we somehow overlooked. Of course that is untrue, we keep up with it, but still cannot recommend it. So once we explain that what is written about accessibility is – and I am trying to be kind here – not a full picture of all that is necessary for accessibility, it really diminished the reputation of the entire suite of tools. So, we now actively steer folx away from Rise at the outset because it's not accessible and can't be made accessible to our standards, and ultimately makes our job harder with regard to trying to standardize on one suite of tools for our design and development cycles.
Hello! Great to see more accessibility features for Rise 360 are in development etc...
As I'm about to design a new course to meet accessibility standards, would be great to have an overview of the Rise blocks vs accessibility conformance etc. I have looked through the Accessibility Collection, and other than the features mentioned 'in development' - cannot see an overview. Just wondered if this does exist as I know people have requested earlier in this thread?
124 Replies
This discussion hasn't been commented on in a while... has there been any further progress with RISE becoming more ADA compliant?
Hi Joanne! Alyssa posted just one page back, so I'll copy it here for the most recent folx!
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 about your questions and experiences building accessible courses for all!
I'm glad to see that Articulate has been working on accessibility for Rise. Thank you!
However, what I really want is a simple list of block types with a yes/no for full accessibility with keyboard and screen readers and any known accessibility issues listed.
Does this exist somewhere?
Hi Jeanne! Thanks for reaching out! We don't have a chart that simply lists down the blocks with compatibility, but we do have the following:
Rise 360 Keyboard Navigation - Listing down Keyboard-Accessible Navigation among all Rise elements
Rise 360 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
Rise 360 Roadmap for Planned and In-development - Accessibility related Features coming soon listing down which blocks are being worked on
I agree with Jeanne. A simple list or chart would be incredibly useful (in addition to the more detailed information that's already available).
Back in December I was so happy to see that there had finally seemed to be a lot of progress made in making Rise accessible and up to WCAG standards. Even though it seemed to only be partially there, I had a lot of hope in that it wouldn't be long before the outstanding components were addressed (based on the messaging I had saw)... It's now almost July and the last updated date on any of the Rise Accessibility docs remain as December 2020. I took a look at the roadmap link that was shared and was super disappointed to see that all Rise-related accessibility items that are outstanding are just listed as "planned", not even "in development"! These aren't just nice to have features, these are crucial features to ensuring proper access to Rise courses. I had thought Accessibility was a priority, but that seems to no longer be the case. Is there really nothing else currently in development for Rise other than quiz question banks?! Sure doesn't seem to be a whole lot to look forward to for the future of this product...
Same in our projects. We didn't pass ac-tests last month again and are waiting for crucial updates.
@Thomas - when you didn't pass your accessibility tests, did you have elements that were known as non-accessible (carousels, drag and drop, scenario, and flashcards)? I'm hoping to use Rise with the accessible blocks, and perhaps embed SL blocks for interactions that aren't currently accessible in Rise... thoughts? (not drag and drop, of course)
I agree with you Mark. It's hard to believe how long it is taking to have what seems like basic accessibility features available. I don't understand why blocks such as the flash cards and carousel still are only listed in the "planned" phase. These basic blocks are pretty crucial to creating engaging and interesting courses.
Definitely. I don't get how this product wasn't just built with accessibility in mind from the start... it was launched in late 2016, and accessibility was a known requirement for man back then. Would have made things much easier than now trying to retrofit everything.
Based on all the simple (but crucial) enhancement requests filling these forums that are years old and still haven't been implemented, I can't say I have much faith that the critical outstanding accessibility issues will be addressed anytime soon. Hope they prove me wrong, but for some reason the development of this product moves at a snail's pace and they show very little interest fulfilling the requests of their customers.
Hi everyone,
We've been following your recent comments regarding accessibility in Rise 360. To help with your planning, we’ve adjusted the status of the remaining block features on our roadmap to indicate “In Development” because we’ve reached a stage where we feel confident these blocks will fully support the WCAG 2.1 Success Criteria. I can’t share an ETA or a timeline right now, but we promise to keep you posted on our latest developments in our accessibility journey here.
Thank you for your commitment to accessible online learning and for allowing us to partner with you in achieving that goal!
Thank you Alyssa!
Hi Jennifer, no - we only used intentionally "pure" elements as blocks. Our testing department had complaints with some navigational key elements (buttons, arrows and menues). The complaints come from ISO 16071 and other ac requirements. Unfortunately all interactive elements (carousels a.s.o) are not fulfilling our accessibility criterias at date. Best, Thomas
Hello. I just want to echo everyone else's comments. Accessibility is really important to us and we'd be really keen to see a clear roadmap from Articulate, with timelines included, that demonstrates a commitment to improving accessibility. We were disappointed by the December release. We were expecting much more significant changes. We've just had another round of testing done and despite using only accessible block types (which severely limits the interactivity of our courses), basic issues such as insufficient colour contrast and no page titles in code are still showing up as issues.
Hello Articulate,
These are 5 years and taking more time to implement the accessibly feature to this product. as the primary design requirements for a eLearning product are accessibility and supporting customization on branding, we are still waiting for these 5 years except some small functionality improvement. One of such request is black theme for Rise, bullet points customization, Symbol library, block content alignment both text and image are still pending. Can these be implemented from Articulate?
Developers should not have to pick and choose less interactive or engaging elements to make sure it's accessible. Every feature should be accessible See Softchalk for an example of a content creation tool that has done an outstanding job of redesigning interactions to make them accessible and removing those that could not be made so. And they did it all within a couple of years.
It's great to see so many accessibility features "in development", but without a projected date, it's meaningless. It's like people being engaged but not setting a date for years.
I also see "autoplay" as one of your proposed features. This actually HURTS accessibility. (https://www.boia.org/blog/why-autoplay-is-an-accessibility-no-no)
Would love to hear an update on where things currently stand.
The "Accessibility Journey" page was last updated January 2021(!!).
Can we finally be provided some hard dates as to when the outstanding accessibility items (that had been promised for end of 2020) will finally be available? Our 360 licenses are up for renewal soon, and wondering if it's time to finally cut ties if these updates are going to take another 5 years to implement.
As noted above, the update to the accessibility features being changed from "planned" to "in development" was meaningless without a date attached, and was clearly just a superficial move that didn't actually change the priority or status in the backend. Surely at least one of those features should have been fully developed within the last 5 months??
Seems like priority to the few upgrades made to Rise are always given to the low value/low impact items that most customers will rarely use.
Can someone from the development team weigh-in here, instead of making one of the community reps once again do their standard blurb about no updates yet but they'll let us know once there are?
Mark,
I agree wholeheartedly. There are some features of Rise that we really love (ease of use!) but we're also thinking we might not be able to continue with 360 beyond our current term if the accessibility issues aren't addressed. Beyond that, we're concerned that known issues in general seem to take years (if ever) to be fixed.
Perhaps we should start sharing the names of companies we're thinking about switching too...
Best,
Ashley
Agreeing with Mark and Ashely here, too.
I would love some solid information as well.
Currently, we do use and recommend Storyline because you can *make* the content accessible but it is not simple, or seamless, and this is a turn off to some of the folx we train to use authoring tools to create learning experiences. Some of those folx then read the... highlights... that articulate shares about Rise and think it's a solution that we somehow overlooked. Of course that is untrue, we keep up with it, but still cannot recommend it. So once we explain that what is written about accessibility is – and I am trying to be kind here – not a full picture of all that is necessary for accessibility, it really diminished the reputation of the entire suite of tools. So, we now actively steer folx away from Rise at the outset because it's not accessible and can't be made accessible to our standards, and ultimately makes our job harder with regard to trying to standardize on one suite of tools for our design and development cycles.
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Hello! Great to see more accessibility features for Rise 360 are in development etc...
As I'm about to design a new course to meet accessibility standards, would be great to have an overview of the Rise blocks vs accessibility conformance etc. I have looked through the Accessibility Collection, and other than the features mentioned 'in development' - cannot see an overview. Just wondered if this does exist as I know people have requested earlier in this thread?
Thanks in advance!
Hi Jo! These two links can help!
https://articulate.com/support/article/Rise-360-Accessibility-Conformance-Report-VPAT?#section-508-report
https://articulate.com/support/article/Rise-360-Our-Accessibility-Journey
Are these interactions in Rise WCAG 2.1 AA compliant?
Carousels
Scenario Blocks
Flashcards
Hi Nadine,
The accessibility status of those interactions are stated here: https://articulate.com/support/article/Articulate-360-Feature-Roadmap#rise-360
Thank you Karl. Do we have an idea of timeline?