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christytucker
Participant
November 19, 2015
Answered

Screen reader accessibility for non-interactive objects

  • November 19, 2015
  • 2 replies
  • 3166 views

I'm working in Cp 8 and trying to make a course fully Section 508 compatible. I've been testing with the screen reader Window-Eyes. The screen reader can access the playbar buttons and TOC fine, and it usually recognizes interactive elements on the screen. However, most of the time, the screen reader isn't acknowledging any captions or smart shapes with text on the screen. Many slides are just text plus a transparent text button to pause the screen, so mostly I need the screen reader to read the course content. According to the documentation, I shouldn't have to copy the text into the Accessibility Name for each object, although I have tried that in a few places without success. The accessibility functionality seems so flaky. Once in a while I can get something to work, but not completely, or I can't repeat it.

I have been able to get the screen reader to read the text if I remove all interactive elements including the playbar and TOC. In other words, if I have a 1-slide course, Captivate's accessibility works. As soon as I try to give people an option to advance to the next slide via a button or playbar controls, it stops working.

Yes, accessibility is turned on. I have tried showing and hiding the rectangle around objects in HTML5. I've tried both SWF and HTML5 publishing. I tried switching to transparent text buttons rather than click boxes, which has seemed to make a little difference. I have tried different keyboard shortcuts and made sure I never use the same shortcut twice on a single slide.

How does a screen reader access the text content within Captivate? The documentation says you can access it with arrows, but that doesn't work. What are people doing in the real world to make courses accessible when the program doesn't work the way the documentation says it should?I know from reading other threads that some organizations have given up and just gone to providing text alternatives.

I'm open to any suggestions.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer RodWard

My suggestion is you do what the others have already done.  Trying to make Captivate content "fully Section 508 compliant" is not a realistic goal.

As you have noted, the screen readers prefer to pay attention to interactive objects.  So you would need to use interactive objects even for those text objects that didn't need to be buttons.  (You can set their ON Success action to No Action so that they just sit there and do nothing.)

But you are still going to run into issues at some point and those issues will be showstoppers.

So, save yourself a lot of hassle and invoke the escape clause in all of the Section 508 and W3C Accessibility documentation that allows you to offer a "text-based alternative".  Create an accessible MS Word or PDF document that contains the same content.  You'll do that in a fraction of the time it would take you to UNSUCCESSFULLY try to get Captivate's e-learning content to satisfy all Section 508 rules.

Probably NOT what you wanted to hear, but I sincerely feel someone needs to be saying this.

2 replies

TLCMediaDesign
TLCMediaDesign
Inspiring
January 30, 2016

You might want to have a look at this thread:

Jaws and Cp 7.01.237 - not BFFs?

The OP Justenuf2bdangerous has posted many times about 508 issues. He/She has put in a lot of work and sharing results concerning CP's accessibility.

RodWard
Community Expert
RodWardCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
November 19, 2015

My suggestion is you do what the others have already done.  Trying to make Captivate content "fully Section 508 compliant" is not a realistic goal.

As you have noted, the screen readers prefer to pay attention to interactive objects.  So you would need to use interactive objects even for those text objects that didn't need to be buttons.  (You can set their ON Success action to No Action so that they just sit there and do nothing.)

But you are still going to run into issues at some point and those issues will be showstoppers.

So, save yourself a lot of hassle and invoke the escape clause in all of the Section 508 and W3C Accessibility documentation that allows you to offer a "text-based alternative".  Create an accessible MS Word or PDF document that contains the same content.  You'll do that in a fraction of the time it would take you to UNSUCCESSFULLY try to get Captivate's e-learning content to satisfy all Section 508 rules.

Probably NOT what you wanted to hear, but I sincerely feel someone needs to be saying this.

C
christytuckerAuthor
Participant
November 19, 2015

Thanks, Rod. I was afraid that was the answer I'd get, but I was hoping I'd missed something. I hadn't thought of making everything interactive but set to "No Action," so if they decide they do need to pursue an interactive version we'll try that route.

moyco
moyco
Inspiring
January 29, 2016

Unfortunately, a text-based alternative hasn't been a viable option for the Federal government products for years. It would really be nice if Adobe could/would work with some accessibility experts (actual real-world people who have developed training for the government and know the requirements) to fix the problems. At least come up with some viable work arounds. I've been developing 508-compliant, accessible training for years and unless it's very simple we just cannot use Captivate. This is a shame because of the great SCORM options Captivate offers.

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