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
Yep, I really wanted to try out Rise for a project that requires responsive design and accessibility that is due at the end of June. But without any timelines for release of accessibility features, think I'll have to wait.....disappointed.
The "real-world application" is that by law, the learning needs to be universally accessible. And beyond that, accessible design is just good design. You're making it difficult to do good work.
So there are no plans for ARIA tags, just alt tags? This is 2017, not 1997 - if it's just the basic alt tags and tabbing you're working to deploy in Q2, we might have to go back to Appitierre's Evolve for this aspect of our course offer. I'm struggling to work out how a company the size of Articulate can't accomplish what a tiny startup achieved from day 1 of its launch. Don't get me wrong, Rise is a beautiful product and I desperately want to be able to use it, but the lack of any modern accessibility provision in an educational product is a major oversight and precludes its use in most contexts.
I am excited to incorporate Rise as an authoring tool for my team and have the same accessibility requirements stated above. Additionally, I would like to see confirmation from the dev team that available features perform equally in HTML 5 and SCORM exports.
Any updates on this?
Hi Matt - Based on your previous post in this thread, I assume you are asking about an update to alt tags? This is on our planning schedule for Q2 of '17, which we are in now. It's a target, but I do not have an update or more specific information to share at this time. Stay tuned :)
Thank you Leslie, as soon as you get an idea of the time frame can you let us know as we need to make some final decisions on our tools this week.
Hi John,
I'll reach out to a few colleagues, as I know it's scheduled for Q2 still (which is Apr-June) but I don't want to commit to a specific date before we have it finalized.
You're in the right place, and we’ll share as much as we can, as soon as we can!
Hello, as we approach the end of June I am wondering if there is an update on this?
Hi there John,
Thanks for checking in! We're working hard on this feature, and it's still on our roadmap. I don't have an update on a specific ETA, but it's coming soon. We know folks are excited about it, and we are too!
Alyssa, thank you for the feedback.
I think if Rise can resolve these critical issues then it can be a powerful tool. I wanted to help contribute to the improvement and resolution of these accessibility issues, so I've had it reviewed from an accessibility standpoint and here are some key findings:
Visual
When hovering and then moving my mouse off and onto the left side Nav that the link colours changed, the colour gets very light and may not be perceivable to some. How much control does the user have over colour?
All colour choices need to be checked, background and foreground/font need to have high contrast.
Media Controls
The play button for the YouTube videos is not labelled as anything so is not perceivable by sound
Self-Assessment
Could not hear radio button labels for choices or the text beside each possible answer
Did not hear the correct or incorrect answers when it was show on screen after hitting submit
JAWS
There seems to be an unlabeled button that when clicked by hitting enter turns off or hides the side navigation menu.
That's really helpful information, John. Thanks so much for that insight. I'll be sure to share all of your points with my team!
I'd also like to be updated regarding accessibility features.
Hi guys - is this still on the roadmap for Q2, or has it been pushed out?
Hi Lala,
The accessibility features are something we're still working on! So the timing has shifted into Q3 - sorry for the delay in getting out this feature to you.
We know how important it is - and how important it is to get it right! 🙂
Thanks Brian. I want to add my interest in this and receive further notifications.
This is an issue that is stopping us from increasing our team subscription. Also, I know you're all doing your best to get this solved quickly but this issue really is a deal breaker in terms of how much we can continue to use the product.
In terms of real world accessibility, it's hard to say. There are all sorts of people out there with varying needs it would be hard to cover them all. I would say from our point of view the screen reader functionality is a must, alt text for images, transcripts for auido, captions for video, good and safe use of colour, keyboard shortcuts for navigation. I think that covers it.
Looking forward to seeing this resolved. Thanks :)
Adding myself to get the updates. I make courses for Higher Ed/K-12 and this is a critical issue.
Thanks, Elizabeth and Erich, for subscribing to this discussion and letting us know how it impacts your work!
Adding my voice to the chorus of requests - and dismay - in relation to this issue. I'm unclear as to whether the inaction and absence of timeframe is due to a) a lack of understanding on the Articulate team's behalf of just how important accessibility is to your users and their clients, or whether b) that understanding exists but other priorities are taking precedence. Either way, it reflects extremely poorly on the both the values and responsiveness of the organisation.
Rise is the ONLY reason I subscribed to Articulate 360 and I must confess that I didn't check its accessibility before subscribing to Articulate 360 - my bad entirely. In my defense, it didn't even occur to me that in 2017 Articulate would release a non-accessible product. Rise - and indeed my subscription - is rendered completely useless to my business until accessibility issues are resolved.
For those of us attending DevLearn 2017 I suggest we all make it a point to connect with as many Articulate reps in attendance and lobby them in-person for rapid improvements with accessibility. Our voice is strongest in numbers.
Let me give you a preview of that convo, Matt. "Thanks for letting us know what you think and that's super! We don't know if we're ever going to get around to it, but maybe Q7 of 2019. We value your input, and that's why we don't want to muddle the conversation with 'information' or 'help' or 'a response that doesn't sound like corporate doublespeak.'"
I hope you guys are able to get something at DevLearn. The lousy thing is that it's such a good tool otherwise. I love using it. The lack of open communication is infuriating, though. Their PR strategy is far less cutting-edge than their software.
Accessibility is extremely important to us so I am joining the conversation. Thought you might like to see some feedback provided by our Adaptive technologies officer.
"Summary comments on Articulate Rise for screen reader access:
Textual material presents well and navigation works well. Simple yes/no questions are usable with a screen reader but there is no feedback when a response is made until the Submit button is activated.
The sample questions involving graphics were unusable. Appropriate alt text on the images may or may not help. That is, I could not determine what was required of me.
Sorting (drag and drop) tasks are completely inaccessible."
Thanks and looking forward to seeing the accessibility issue resolved.
Thank you Emily,
To echo everyone's comments, I think what we are all looking for is:
1. What exactly is being worked on?
2. Are all the accessibility improvements being released at once? (Alt text was just released on it's own, so it's unclear what the release plan is)
3. With the delay to Q3, can Articulate make a promise of a certain date? We're just looking for a roadmap here.
I think it might be more of a "How do we do this?" type of thing. Looking forward to using this product as soon as it is in govt. compliance.
Brian,
Can you please provide an update on this?