Adobe Captivate 13.2 includes a substantial collection of accessibility enhancements and fixes, particularly for learners who use screen readers or navigate courses using a keyboard.
One of my favorite improvements is new control over heading levels.
Previously, Captivate could infer a heading level based on how text was visually styled. With Captivate 13.2, you can explicitly designate text as a heading—or not a heading—and specify the appropriate heading level. This makes it much easier to create a logical heading structure for assistive technology rather than relying on appearance.
Adobe also addressed numerous keyboard-navigation issues. Tabs and video players now display visible focus indicators, and the main page container provides a visible focus indicator. Several situations where focused objects could become obscured by other content have also been corrected.
Another significant improvement is providing alternatives to dragging. Sequencing interactions now offer a non-dragging alternative, player controls can be operated using the keyboard, and interactive avatars can be positioned without requiring a mouse.
Screen reader support has been improved throughout Captivate as well. Text input fields now have accessible names, simulation objects expose more useful information to assistive technology, and selected or active states can be communicated for objects such as Flip Cards, buttons, and Table of Contents entries.
Captivate 13.2 also improves status announcements. For example, simulation success messages can be automatically announced to screen reader users, as can video loading status. Success messages and hint text in simulations also remain onscreen longer, giving learners more time to read and respond.
Adobe has addressed text resizing and reflow, too. Text can now be resized up to 200% without losing content or functionality, and the Submit All experience remains functional at a 320-pixel-equivalent width.
Other improvements address color contrast, grouped form controls, nested interactive controls, ARIA information, accessible labels, and reading order.
That’s a lot of accessibility work in a single Captivate update.
Of course, Captivate can’t make a course accessible by itself. As developers, we still need to make thoughtful decisions about heading structure, accessibility text, reading order, color contrast, keyboard navigation, and interaction design.
But Captivate 13.2 gives us better tools—and fixes several barriers in the published output that developers couldn’t necessarily solve on their own.
Adobe has also published an updated Accessibility Conformance Report (ACR) for Captivate 13.2 that provides additional details about the accessibility of Captivate and its published content.
If accessibility is important to your organization or your clients, the improvements in Captivate 13.2 are certainly worth exploring.
If you need training or mentoring in Adobe Captivate, send me an email. I’ll set up a private training session for you, your team, or help you get over that development hurdle.