Forum Discussion
Most accessible interactions
Hello everyone! I've received some feedback about a recent elearning that I created that drag and drop interactions aren't very accessible.
I've read through a lot of the help documents about what makes learning content accessible, but I can't find much detail on designing accessible interactions. Would anyone have any information about what I should steer away from? And any ideas for interactions that I can use apart from click and reveal type interactions?
Thank you so much!
Hi LisaEdmondson-4 the following link provides information on which interactions are accessible, and which are not: https://www.articulate.com/about/accessibility/storyline-360-accessibility-conformance-report-vpat/
It is possible to make the drag and drop interactions keyboard accessible, but treating the interaction differently. For example, allowing the keyboard user to "select" the drag item, then tab to the drop target and "select" the drop target. You can then have a trigger that checks if X is selected and Y is selected, then correct and so on. This is a simplified explanation, as they is more to it than that, but this is the solution that is required.
Hi LisaEdmondson-4
Perhaps a bit late on your post but recently discovered this Accessibility group.
I have been advocating for accessibility in my team for a few years. I understand and agreed about the accessibility issue with drag and drops. I haven't watched the video provided at another reply but one of the biggest issue with drag and drops are that they are not workable if your learners are in a mobile devise and they tend to be very difficult with keyboard focus too.
To be honest it also depends on your target audience and what accessibility consideration you may need to put up-front in your design/development process.
We (in me team) have decided not to use drag and drops and what I did to compensate that was a different interaction that delivers similar results, basically a "select from list" type of interaction. So far working well.
My advise for you is to always put accessibility up-front in the process and to understand your user needs. There are accessibility standards that are a must but some others are audience specific.I would advise, for anybody considering using Storyline 360 to deploy mobile learning. Don't.
It is not a fit for purpose tool and was developed long before mobile learning was a thing.
If you must use Articulate software, to build mobile learning, you should definitely leave SL360 on the shelf, and reach for R360 instead.
The way that SL360 "scales" content, rather than adapts it to the screen is not conducive to a good learner experience, and it is very likely to be unusable for many users as it presents fine motor and visual impairment issues.
Thank you PedroMendez for taking the time to reply, that's really helpful. Whilst at the moment, I'm not aware of any mobile devices being used to complete our modules, making sure that we future proof them by using the accessible interactions in the first instance is what I'm keen to implement. It's always really useful to understand how others treat interactions regarding accessibility and the reasons behind those decisions.
I'm glad that SamHill (thanks, Sam!) provided our conformance report and details of how you could make drag-and-drops accessible.
We do have some information if you'd like to take this route.
- A webinar on How to Create an Accessible Drag-and-Drop Interaction in Storyline 360
- A downloadable example that pairs with the webinar - Storyline: Accessible Drag-and-Drop Chat Interaction
Thank you so much!
Hi LisaEdmondson-4 the following link provides information on which interactions are accessible, and which are not: https://www.articulate.com/about/accessibility/storyline-360-accessibility-conformance-report-vpat/
It is possible to make the drag and drop interactions keyboard accessible, but treating the interaction differently. For example, allowing the keyboard user to "select" the drag item, then tab to the drop target and "select" the drop target. You can then have a trigger that checks if X is selected and Y is selected, then correct and so on. This is a simplified explanation, as they is more to it than that, but this is the solution that is required.
Thank you SamHill this is great. The solution to Likert interactions was also quite timely for me as we use a pre and post learning questionnaire so I may need to adjust that as well.
