Any government (Section 508 mandated) Articulate users out there?

[ChrisW]

Please send me a private message. I'd like to discuss your approach to addressing Section 508 accessibility issues using Articulate products.

Thanks!

[Jerry]

It would be better to have the knowledged placed in the forum to help everyone out.
What work arounds used etc.

[ChrisW]

I agree, but Section 508 discussions in the past in these forums have fizzled quickly. I was hoping to establish some more direct, lasting dialog.

I'll post one of my current 508 issues here tomorrow (heading out the door now).

[Pink Lady]

We are required to comply with Section 508. We just started using Articulate a few months ago to create e-learning for internal use. Unfortunately, I have discovered that all of the products don't really comply with the law. I see that Articulate says that they are Section 508 compliant with some guidelines for Presenter and Quizmaker, but I have found problems with having the demo version of Jaws and the built-in Windows XP Narrator (Accessibility) try to read the output. They can't read the produced files at all. We are almost better off just keeping it in PowerPoint, rather than creating a separate file (Word or PowerPoint) for accessibility. Please let me know if you have had similar problems, and what you did to resolve it.

[ChrisW]

Yes, I've run into similar problems. JAWS + Articulate do not get along well together. Period. So I rely on the narration transcript (generated in Articulate) to serve as my alternate path for JAWS users. I make sure none of my on-slide images convey exclusive content - all content is fully contained in the narration. I am also careful to include all hyperlinks from my slides in the narration transcript.

Despite this, the office that oversees our e-learning policy is still adamant about alt-tags on all images, even though 1) the alt-tags don't make the transition from PowerPoint to Articulate (Flash), and 2) visually-impaired users should be accessing the alternate path anyway - so they shouldn't encounter the image issues at all.

I find Section 508 to be a frustrating topic, particularly when our internal interpretations are arbitrary and often irrational. Some of our folks believe that not only should content be made accessible to all (which I agree with), but that alternate paths are not allowed and all content must be stripped down to its barest element, to the detriment of the 99% of our users who do not have visual impairments.

Here's an ADA analogy to what I'm dealing with. If you are building a multi-story office building, you are required by law to have ramps and elevators in addition to stairs and escalators. Makes sense to me. However, if our e-learning policy makers were in charge, they would ban stairs and escalators entirely, since the physically impaired can't use them (despite the existence of ramps and elevators).

Am I the only one who sees a complete lack of logic in this approach?

[Jerry]

As for Articulate and 508 compliance, I/we don't beleive that they are all the way there yet.

Articulate is a great product for e-learning, if you don't have to deal with 508.
Hopefully, they will continue to improve on a great product.

The issues we have had with Articulate and 508 are

1. No ability to tab thru to all the controls on the player.

2. No way for a visually handicapped user to know where his mouse is on the player.

3. No alternative text for images or player controls.

4. Screen readers can not read the flash output, because articulate does not include any alternative text for images that may have been included in the powerpoint slides.

5. Also very important.
If you plan to use Articulate with an LMS, beware Articulate does not handle cross domain issues well (eg: LMS and course content hosted seperate) by itself.
You will have to tear apart the javascript aicc code to get it to work or create a custom wrapper to talk back to LMS.

For those above reasons, we have had to go back to using Authorware to pass 508 compliance for government course and for courses host on many different servers.

[JavaScripter]

I am also running into the same issue here. Our business is trying to find an inexpensive application, such as Articulare Presenter 5 Pro, so that our instructional designers can click a button or two, and have PowerPoint wrapped and ready to go into our LMS (SumTotal). We have some visually impaired individuals that use Windows Eyes. Does anyone know if the output from Articulate Presenter 5 works with Windows Eyes, or are we better to look elsewhere?

[Jerry]

From our testing, AP does not provide alternate text for Windows Eyes or Jaws to read.
Since the output is in flash .swf files.

If AP also provided the .fla files in the output then anyone who needed the alternate text added, could do it themselves by using Flash MX or Flash CS3 to add the flash accessibility to it (hint to the AP designers).

[MikeBecvar]

I just started a new job and I am getting into Articulate. I haven't seen much that would make me think that Articulate would meet the Section 508 requirements for accessibility.

I was reviewing one of the quizes that another developer had made and tried to navigate with the keyboard. I was able to select the items just fine and was surpirised by the yellow outline. When I tabbed to the "Submit" button, I could not activiate it by pressing ENTER on my keyboard. I didn't even bother testing the hotspot question because it would be impossible for someone to do with the keyboard or if visually impaired.

[Jerry]

Welcome Mike,
AP will not fully meet the Goverment standards for Section 508 requirements for accessibility.
I think the course you tested was created in version 4.
Version 5 doesn't have the ability anymore to use the "Tab" key to move to any of the AP player controls, provide alternate tags and the screen readers (Jaws or Windows eyes) cannot access the flash training material.

AP is a top of the line eLearning development software, (if you dont have to create content for the goverment).