Adobe Captivate: Customize Accessibility Text for Slide Objects

by Kevin Siegel

You can easily make your Captivate eLearning lessons Section 508 compliant by choosing Edit > Preferences. In the Category panel, expand Project and select Publish Settings. Then select Enable Accessibility.

Your published project will be 508 compliant for navigation. However, you will also want to ensure that slide objects are compliant so that screen readers (assistive software) can "read" elements on the screen to visually impaired customers.

You can easily add accessible text to individual objects on a Captivate slide. When the object appears on the screen, the screen reader reads the accessible text aloud. If you do not specify accessible text for an object, the screen reader reads the default text. For example, if the object is an image, the screen reader says Graphics Image–which isn't very helpful.

Objects other than text captions and text entry boxes do not contain text. By adding accessible text to non-text objects, you can help customers understand the purpose of the object in the lesson.

Here's how you add custom accessibility text to an object:

1. Right-click the object you would like to customize and choose Properties.
2. Click the Accessibility button.
3. Deselect Auto Label.
4. In the Item Accessibility dialog box, do the following:

   Accessibility Name: Type the accessibility text. For a button, you might type Continue Button.

   Accessibility Description: Add a description to clarify information for the person using the screen reader. For example, consider the button that has the Accessibility Name: Continue Button. You might type the following description text: This button, once activated, will allow you to continue the lesson.