Useful Tools and Resources
Hi everyone, I'd like to share some accessibility (a11y) resources. I hope these will be helpful in making your content more inclusive and accessible to everyone. Whether you're new to accessibility or looking to deepen your understanding, these resources provide valuable insights, and best practices to ensure your work is accessible to all users, regardless of their abilities. Thanks. Understood: Understood is the leading nonprofit empowering the 70 million people with learning and thinking differences in the United States. https://www.understood.org/ Funkify: A disability simulator that helps you experience the web and interfaces through the eyes of extreme users. https://www.funkify.org/ Accessible Numbers: Presenting numbers and data clearly. https://accessiblenumbers.com/ Neurodiversity Design System: A set of standards and principles that combine neurodiversity and UX design for Learning Management Systems. https://neurodiversity.design/ WhoCanUse: A tool that brings attention and understanding to how colour contrast can affect people with different visual impairments. https://www.whocanuse.com/ Viz Palette: Colors in action. https://projects.susielu.com/viz-paletteStoryline custom focus control
========================================================================= Update 4th Feb 2025 Added a second argument that will determine if the target elements content will be announced to the screen reader, using the aria-live=assertive attribute. ========================================================================= There have many been times, when using Storyline to develop content, it has not been possible to get the kind of screen reader focus control that I have needed. Using layers for this can only get you so far. I developed a JavaScript function that allows you to send the screen reader focus to the text field that you want, via any trigger. Adding the following JavaScript to your projects Slide Master will make it available throughout your module: // Check if function has been defined already if (typeof window.setFocus === "undefined") { // Get reference to the Storyline Player var $player = GetPlayer(); // Set the amount of time to delay before attempting to send focus to the target element (milliseconds) 1000 = 1 second. var $interval = 200; // window.setFocus = function ($target, $announce = false) { // Get the target element, based on the passed argument setTimeout(function () { var $div = document.querySelector('[data-acc-text^="' + $target + '"]'); var $id = "acc-" + $div.dataset.modelId $div = document.getElementById($id); if($announce) { $div.setAttribute("aria-atomic", "true"); $div.setAttribute("aria-live", "assertive"); } // Send focus to target, after defined $interval $div.focus(); }, $interval); } } Once the function is defined in your Slide Master, you can then call the function on the page using a JavaScript function, which can be triggered by any Storyline trigger such as timeline start, timeline end, button click etc. // The second argument will determine if the content should // be announced to assistive technology using aria-live=assertive // This will announce the text contents to the screen reader window.setFocus("Customer in the queue", true); // This will just send focus to the element. window.setFocus("Customer in the queue", false); The first argument, which is passed in the "" quotes, is the text contents of the text field you are targeting. You do not have to include all the text, just enough to ensure it is unique. For example, if you have two text fields: "Customer in the queue talking on their phone." "Customer in the shop staring into space." Passing the words "Customer in the" would not be specific enough, as there would be two text fields found. However, passing "Customer in the queue" would send the focus to the text field that contains the text "Customer in the queue talking on their phone." The second argument (true or false) determines if the target elements contents should be announced to the screen reader when it receives focus.Creating alt text for complex images easier
Hey folks, I'm really glad to see this new accessibility Group on E-Learning heroes. Right now in my own line of work, I'm pushing for really accessible courses and it's quite crazy how trainers are missing fundamental things such as alternative text on images. Which I would end up having to do to ensure a project gets done in time. Anyway, I made a video tutorial very recently on how you can speed up creating alternative text for graphics using Microsoft Copilot. It can also be done with other tools such as ChatGPT. I hope it helps and more importantly, gets more people to make sure that all their graphics have alternative descriptions. Enhancing Accessibility in Instructional Design with Microsoft CopilotIntroduction
Welcome to our Accessibility Group! We're excited to have you join this collaborative space, where you can find inspiration and connect with like-minded individuals. We're all human and learning on this accessibility journey. Use this group to ask questions, share ideas, support each other, and learn about the latest guidelines and laws. Together, we'll grow in accessibility maturity and create a supportive community through this safe and inclusive space.Accessibility: Frameworks, Prioritization, and Maturity
How Articulate uses a prioritization framework to drive accessibility maturity Thanks to everyone who joined us for this webinar with Deque. We had a great time, a great turnout, and some great questions. I wanted to share some resources with you: Webinar recording: How Articulate uses a prioritization framework to drive accessibility maturity Presentation slides Webinar takeaway - Accessibility Maturity: A Guide to Getting Started with Your Organizational Model In addition, I'm evaluating all the questions that came in, and I'll select the ones related to this topic that we did not discuss during the live Q&A. Let's continue the conversation right here in the comments! Original Post: Join Articulate for this free webinar with Deque on September 26, 2024. How Articulate Uses a Prioritization Framework to Drive Accessibility Maturity I'd love to hear about the processes your organization is using for accessibility maturity.Accessibility Checker Early Access Sign-up
Hello everyone, If you've noticed this on the roadmap or seen the demo at DevLearn last November, you know we're building a new Accessibility Checker feature for Storyline 360. The Accessibility Checker will surface potential a11y issues that could prevent some learners from getting the most out of your course. Even better, it will explain why the issue is important to fix, how you can fix it, and, in some cases, it will even fix it for you with a single click! We've been working hard on this feature for the past several months and are nearly ready to let a small group of customers try it out and provide feedback via our Early Access program. Participants in the Early Access program will be able to use the feature via the Storyline private beta and communicate directly with the engineering team to ask questions and provide feedback that will help shape the final version of the feature. If you're interested in participating in the Early Access program, please fill out this interest form: https://lnkd.in/eFAPU3KD NOTE: Not all customers currently in the private beta program will be able to use the Accessibility Checker while it's in Early Access. Once Early Access concludes, the feature will be available to all private beta users for a period of time before being released to everyone. Thanks, RonnieScreen reader only text
A technique that is commonly used in web development, for accessibility, is to provide text that is available only to screen readers. The text is visually hidden, but can be accessed by text-to-speech and text-to-braille readers. An example usage may be, an image has been used as the heading of the page (maybe a specific font was required). Whilst an ALT text value on the image can describe it and relay the text contents, it cannot provide the same semantics an <H1> element can. Heading elements provide essential structure to the document for assistive tech users, and also provide really handy shortcuts for navigating through a document. <style> .screen-reader-only { position: absolute; width: 1px; height: 1px; padding: 0; margin: -1px; overflow: hidden; clip: rect(0, 0, 0, 0); border: 0; } </style> <img src="https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/multi-ethnic-group-people-holding-text-diabetes-45539467.jpg?ct=jpeg" alt="" /> <h1 class="screen-reader-only">Diabetes</h1> Whilst we can't leverage CSS in Storyline, we can achieve the same outcome for accessibility. Using the same example illustrated above, we have a visual heading. The first step would be to ensure the image itself, is not visible to screen readers, by right clicking the image, selecting Accessibility and ensuring that the checkbox labelled Object is visible to accessibility tools is not selected (check mark is cleared). The next step is to relay this same information to screen readers. Start by inserting a text box on the slide and enter the same text that appears within the image. Then select the text you have just entered using CTRL+A. Then from the Text Styles drop-down menu, select the appropriate mark-up, in this instance, Heading 1. The next step is to check your Focus Order and make sure the new text H1 is in the correct reading order for screen readers. The final step is to emulate the "visually hidden" component of the solution. The most common methods I use is to either: Position the text behind the image that it represents, or Position off the slide (the content will still be accessible, even when position off screen). My first preference is to try and keep on the slide, and in a similar location to the image, but sometimes this is not possible, due to animation that is occurring on the slide, as I like to have screen reader text available right away. Following are the results. The video (attached) demonstrates the difference between ALT text and hidden text and the benefits of semantic mark-up.Tab Order and Text Boxes
Hello everyone, I am working on a project for a client who wants to ensure our module is screen reader compliant. A large concern for them is questions where the screen reader states the question, then the learner can tab to the options. Having audio autoplay the question was our original solution but it was not acceptable because of the conflicting audio with the screen reader. Because it is text, the screen reader will not read the question first when tabbing through. The user has to use up and down arrows, which makes it confusing when the screen reader jumps to the options first. When I make the question stem interactive, it adds a "button" to the end of the screen reader. Is there a way to make a text box tab-able directly without also having a "button" tagged on automatically?
