Accessibility in Rise

Dec 01, 2016

Hi,

As mentioned on the website under FAQ for Rise "Are Rise courses compliant with accessibility guidelines?
Rise employs many modern web standards for accessibility, and additional accessibility improvements are in development."

Could you please specify in detail which of these are supported in current version:
WCAG AA, WAI-ARIA Labels, Section 508, DDA, Equality Act and Screen Reader Supports.

Thanks
Mayuresh

342 Replies
Ashley Terwilliger-Pollard

Hi Mayuresh,

Thanks for your question in regards to accessibility standards in Rise. Our team is continuing to look at improvements with a few things in development, but I don't have any specifics to share about that at this time. As far as the specific items you mentioned, they are not officially supported within Rise. It is worth noting though that we support WCAG and 508 compliance, in both flash and html5 output for Storyline 360 and Studio 360 - so if accessibility is a major factor in your development you may want to look at those two tools in the meantime. You can see a general overview of Articulate 360 and accessibility here. 

We'll keep you posted on any other developments and changes to our accessibility options within Rise!  

Matt Saavedra

I think it is critical that Articulate start building in accessible design from the start with both new and existing products. It's disappointing to see that this hasn't already been addressed by Rise. Any public education entity whether K-12 or higher ed must comply with accessibility requirements. If you want to sway folks away from Captivate you really need to put some resources in to this with your products. 

Justin Grenier

Hi, Laura.

We have some accessibility improvements targeted for Q1 of 2017. The specifics of those improvements are TBD, but by posting in this forum thread, you're automatically subscribed to anything we share here.

As for current accessibility support, it's all about what what the browser provides at the moment. For example, Google Chrome lets you change the size of text, images, and videos, and Firefox lets you use your keyboard for navigation.

We've updated the 360 FAQs for clarity.  Stay tuned for more information on accessibility!

Kati Stoddard

I echo the sentiment of Mark, Matt and Ashley.  I teach in higher ed and use Rise for its ease and quick turnaround, however I  really need it to meet accessibility requirements.  I started using it before I realized this limitation and now realize I may have to go back and redo much of my work in a different software so that it is accessible.  I'm baffled the software would be rolled out without meeting these accessibility requirements and marketed to education professionals.  

I recognize you can't tell us what will happen when, but can you tell us if we could expect that Rise would at some point (in the not too distance future) meet all the standard accessibility requirements?  This information would help me know if I should continue using Rise, or switch to Storyline. 

 

Mary Montgomery

I'm posting here to be another voice and to make sure I receive updates. Accessible content is a must for our organization as well. Currently is there any way to add alt text to an image? This is a basic feature for most software and website applications that makes a huge difference for folks using screen readers. 

Kyle Mackie

Given your market, it's a bad decision to release a product that is not accessible from the ground up. It gives stakeholders a misrepresentation of what can be designed to meet usability standards. Simply put, at present no one should be developing using Rise. Until it is accessible, it is useless.

"We're working on it." is not an adequate response.

It's great that 360 is WCAG and 508 compliant. Is there an option to just buy that?

Brian Gil

Hi Laura,

We're not quite ready to release an update but are working hard on accessibility for Rise. You should expect features to come out incrementally rather than in one large release. As soon as possible we'll add the ability to define alt tags and will ensure that the tab order in a course follows a meaningful sequence. We'll continue releasing improvements and once we reach compliance we'll publish documentation like we have for our desktop applications.

Thank you for your patience and your enthusiasm for Rise!

Kati Stoddard

Brian, 

Is the plan to make Rise fully WCAG 2.0 compliant?  This is important information for me.  I need to know if I need to abandon ship now and start redoing my work in a different platform, or if I could expect Rise to be compliant.  If the plan is to make it WCAG 2.0 compliant, can you tell me if this would happen in a year?  I have a deadline with the course I'm developing and all my material must be WCAG 2.0 compliant by next January.  Would current Rise modules I've created become accessible, or would I have to redo my work within the new "accessible" Rise program? 

 

Thanks

KS 

Evan Shaffer

Agreed.  I want to use Rise, but I can't sit on my hands wondering when incremental updates will be released, and which increments will be included.  As a long-time satisfied user of Articulate products, I'm frustrated by the vague communication and lack of definable action.  I'm in agreement with Kyle that the response is not helpful without more substance and some kind of time frame.  I don't mean to be harsh: I love Articulate.  But I don't think that this is being handled well.

Brian Gil

Hi everyone,

I hear you and have gone back to the product team to get as much clarity as possible for you. We know this is a very serious requirement for those of you who have posted here and we’ll be as transparent as possible -- we’ll tell you exactly where we’re at right now.

The list for accessibility, as you know, is long. We’re going to release various accessibility features for Rise as soon as they are ready rather than holding them back for one huge update. What that means is that while I can’t say when we will be technically compliant, I can tell you that we’re going to release features on a rolling basis -- and get to full compliance as quickly as possible.

Here are the accessibility features we’re working on for Rise and our estimates of when they’ll be done:

  1. We are working on adding author-controlled alt tags. That feature should ship in May.
  2. We are also working on keyboard navigation. This will satisfy the requirement for tab order to follow a logical sequence and should also ship in May.
  3. We’re auditing the product to ensure that color is not the only way a state is conveyed.
  4. We are investigating how to give Rise authors control over contrast and font size. We’ll update you on this when we know more.
  5. We will add the ability for a screen reader to detect language in late Q2.

Please keep in mind that these release dates are estimates -- and we will do our very best to meet these timelines. I should note that these features are in our high-priority dev list.

As we work on these features, we’ll be assessing where Rise stands against the 508 and WCAG standards and working on documentation. As we’ve done with our desktop products, it’s our goal to be 508 and WCAG AA-compliant with Rise.

I’d love for this thread to evolve into a conversation about the real-world application of accessibility features in e-learning. The standards list is long, so we’d love your help in prioritizing them for Rise so we can meet your needs as quickly as possible.

Thank you,

Brian