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
Paul Vincent

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.

Algonquin College

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.

 

 

Elizabeth Everingham Miller

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 :) 

Anna Lee

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. 

 

Evan Shaffer

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.

Jeanne Smith

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. 

John D

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.