Making an Embedded Streaming Video Accessible

Report · Mar 08, 2022

Our company has a Microsoft Stream server and we're looking to use it to host the videos that are part of our E-learning courses. As Captivate 2019 doesn't support Stream in the way that it does YouTube and Vimeo, I need to insert the video as an embedded web object. I'm able to get the video to work using this approach; however, when I test the slide using a screen reader (e.g., JAWS), I'm not able to use the Tab key to select the video, so I can't start it. Autoplay is no good because browsers ignore it (also, Stream doesn't support autoplay muted, not that the attribute would help anyway). I also noticed that the Web object doesn't appear in the tab index within the Captivate slide. When I use the same embed code in a plain webpage, I can use the Tab key to select the video and then press the spacebar or Enter key to start it.

Does anyone know of a way to make this web object a tabbable element? Is there a better way to embed this type of video? And, no, YouTube and Vimeo aren't options per corporate policy.

Report · Mar 10, 2022

When you embed as a web object the video is actually in an iframe. So even if it tabbed to the iframe it wouldn't tab the elements inside of the iframe. I would suggest putting the video in as a slide video.

Report · Mar 10, 2022

Thanks for your reply. I've actually tried inserting it as a slide video, but because it isn't on an Adobe Media Server, YouTube or Vimeo, I get an error message that says, "The file you have specified is incorrect or invalid. Ensure that you specify a valid file."

Yesterday, I discovered that if I went into the Publish Settings within Preferences and removed the check next to "Restrict keyboard tabbing to slide items only" then I can actually tab to the iFrame's play button and tab through all of the video controls within the iFrame. While this might not be completely ideal, in the absence of any other alternatives perhaps this is the approach to use for these videos.

Report · Mar 10, 2022

Upon further testing, while disabling "Restrict keyboard tabbing to slide items only" enables interacting with the iFrame video, I can no longer interact with objects on the slide. I can tab through them but pressing the Enter key has no effect, and shortcut keys are disabled. Interestingly, none of these problems occur when embedding Microsoft Stream videos in Articulate Storyline 360.