Adobe’s Technical Communication Suite – Page 9

October 16, 2013

Adobe Captivate & eLearning: Screen Reader Best Practices

by Kevin Siegel

Last week I wrote about some Best Practices for Creating Compliant eLearning. I'd like to follow up that article with information about screen readers.

Screen readers are programs designed to allow visually impaired learners to navigate through a website or eLearning lesson by reading the content aloud.

Two popular screen readers are JAWS (Job Access With Speech) and Window-Eyes. According to Microsoft, "Windows 8 has built-in assistive technologies that work with both Windows 8 applications and with desktop software to provide seamless access to the entire Windows experience."

If you'd like to see a review of some of the top screen readers, Top 10 Reviews has some great information. For instance, there's a section in the article that deals with compatible applications, something that is often overlooked.

According to the article, "This (compatibility) is one category that should not vary (between screen readers) no matter what your vision level is. You want your software to be compatible with the basics of your computer–word processing applications, internet, email, PDF reading–but not all screen readers are. The best ones work well with newer versions of Microsoft Office, especially Word and Excel. They also include at least two different internet browser options, usually Internet Explorer and Firefox. A variety of email applications is nice, but at the least the software should work with Outlook and Outlook Express."

Each screen reader uses different methods to translate screen information into speech. As you create eLearning projects in Captivate, you can certainly add accessibility, but you cannot control how a screen reader interprets the accessible components you add to any one lesson. For instance, you cannot force a screen reader to read screen text exactly when you want, or how you want. For that reason, it is best practice to test your projects with multiple screen readers and learn for yourself how each screen reader behaves.

Tips for Testing Screen Reader Compliance

Adobe has invested significant resources into Captivate to ensure the lessons you create have the capability of being compliant. And Adobe offers the following tips for testing your lessons for compliance:

If you are designing your projects to work with screen readers, download several screen readers. Then test each project by playing it in a browser with the screen reader enabled.
Ensure that the screen reader is not attempting to "talk over" places in your project where you have inserted separate audio.
Several screen reader applications provide a demonstration version of the software as a free download. Try as many as you can to ensure compatibility across screen readers.
If you are creating interactive content, test it and verify that users can navigate your content effectively using only the keyboard. Screen readers work in different ways when processing input from the keyboard. For this reason, your Adobe Captivate content might not receive keystrokes as you intended. Make sure that you test all keyboard shortcuts.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

October 15, 2013

Adobe Presenter 9: Beginning Training

Have you created a PowerPoint presentation and need to convert it into an eLearning course? Perhaps you need to add a quiz to the presentation and be able to track learner success?

Adobe Presenter 9 allows you to transform your existing PowerPoint deck into eLearning complete with voiceover recordings, interactive objects, screen characters and videos.

During this full-day, online instructor-led class, you will learn how to create an eLearning lesson from scratch using both Microsoft PowerPoint and Adobe Presenter. Among other things, you will add characters and scenes to add personality to your presentation.

You will learn how to set up PowerPoint with slide notes that double as your voiceover script. Then you will learn how to record and edit voiceover audio.

As you move through this totally interactive class, you will learn how to add a quiz to the presentation and how to set up the lesson so that it will work with SCORM and AICC-compliant LMSs.

Finally, you will also learn how to publish the finished eLearning content as both SWF and PDF.

More information.

October 11, 2013

Adobe FrameMaker: Including Chapter Numbers in a Table of Contents

by Barb Binder

I received the following question from one of my Adobe FrameMaker students:

I am making a table of contents (TOC) for my book. When I create the TOC, everything looks fine except I lose the Chapter numbers. For example, the TOC displays "How to cook an egg" instead of "Chapter 1 How to cook an egg." How do I get the same numbers that I use in my individual chapter titles to appear in the TOC?

In FrameMaker, the generated files (i.e., TOC or index) store their structure information on the Reference pages. If you want to use the chapter numbers from the book files, all you need to do is make one quick edit to the TOC reference page within the book's TOC file:

Open the table of contents file. In the image below, the three chapter titles are missing their chapter numbers.
Choose View > Reference pages.
Navigate to the TOC reference page.
Locate the paragraph that controls the chapter titles. In my book files, I named my titles ChapterTitle. The tag I was looking for was ChapterTitleTOC.

Note: You can click each building block until you find the tag you need to edit. The tag name will appear in the lower left corner of the status bar.

Click in front of the building block and type Chapter <$Chapnum>: followed by a space.

Choose View > Body pages.
Save and then Update the book.

FrameMaker reads the new instructions on the reference page, and adds the word Chapter, the chapter number and the punctuation/spacing in front of the original chapter titles.

Adobe FrameMaker: Numbers added

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Looking to learn FrameMaker? We offer both beginner and advanced FrameMaker training.

October 10, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Best Practices for Creating Compliant eLearning

by Kevin Siegel

A few years ago I was in Canada teaching Captivate for a large Toronto-based company. We were just getting ready to cover the accessible features found in Captivate when I was informed that I could skip the section because Canadians were not required to create accessible content.

Fast forward to a recent online Advanced Captivate class that included students from South America, Australia, and Canada.In speaking about accessibility with the class, it became apparent not only does the Canadian government now require compliant eLearning, but according to the Canadian students in class, the rules in Canada are often more stringent than those in the United States. I was also happy to learn that other counties, such as Australia, are also addressing accessibility when it comes to eLearning.

If compliant eLearning is a requirement for you, I would encourage you to review your local laws to familiarize yourself with as much information as possible. If you work in the United States, or create eLearning content for a U.S. company, you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about Section 508 compliance online. If you are working with Canadian companies, you should familiarize yourself with the Canadian compliance laws. (Note: The Section 508 website may be down due to the U.S. Govt. shutdown. If so, you'll need to try accessing the site once the shutdown is over.)

What Does Captivate do to be Section 508 Compliant?

Selecting the Enable Accessibility option (Edit > Preferences > Publishing) makes certain elements in Adobe Captivate projects accessible or open to accessibility technology. For example, if you select the Enable Accessibility option and you have filled in the project name and project description text boxes in Project preferences, a screen reader will read the name and description when the Adobe Captivate SWF file is played.

The following Adobe Captivate elements are accessible when Enable Accessibility is selected:

Project name (derived from Project Properties)
Project description (derived from Project Properties)
Slide accessibility text
Slide label (derived from Slide Properties)
Buttons
Playback controls (The function of each button is read by screen readers)
Password protection (If an Adobe Captivate SWF file is password protected, the prompt for a password is read by screen readers)
Question slides (Title, question, answers, button text, and scoring report are read by screen readers)

Output generated with the Section 508 option is displayed by all supported browsers. However, your output may not be Section 508-compliant unless it is viewed with Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer is the only browser with support for MSAA (Microsoft Active Accessibility).

Note: To access Flash files using a screen reader, users must have Flash Player 9 or later installed.

Tips for Creating 508-compliant Adobe Captivate SWF Files

While Adobe Captivate Section 508 output is compliant for navigation, make sure that other elements are also compliant in your project. Assistive software must be able to "read" elements on the screen to visually impaired users. Use these tips to design accessible projects.

In the Project preferences, write a meaningful name and description for your Adobe Captivate projects.
For users with hearing impairment, add text equivalents for audio elements. For example, when delivering narrative audio, it is important to provide captions at the same time. One option is to place a transparent caption in a fixed location on slides, then synchronize the text with the audio using the Timeline.
If your project contains visual multimedia, provide information about the multimedia for users with visual impairment. If a name and description are given for visual elements, Adobe Captivate can send the information to the user through the screen reader. Make sure that audio in your Adobe Captivate projects does not prevent users from hearing the screen reader.
Supply text for individual slides that screen readers can read.
Ensure that color is not the only means of conveying information. For example, if you use blue to indicate active links, also use bold, italics, underlining, or some other visual clue. In addition, make sure that foreground and background contrast sufficiently to make text readable by people with low vision or color blindness.
For users with either visual or mobility impairment, ensure that controls are device independent or accessible by keyboard.
Users with cognitive impairments often respond best to uncluttered design that is easily navigable.
If mouse movement is critical in your Adobe Captivate project, consider making the pointer twice its normal size for easier viewing.
Document methods of accessibility for users.
Avoid looping objects. When a screen reader encounters content meant for Flash Player, the screen reader notifies the user with audio, such as "Loading….load done." As content in a project changes, Flash Player sends an event to the screen reader notifying it of a change. In response, the screen reader returns to the top of the page and begins reading again. Therefore, a looping text animation on a slide, for example, can cause the screen reader to continually return to the top of the page.
If you are creating click boxes, you can make them more accessible by adding sound. The sound can play when users tab to the click box or hover over it. To add this accessibility feature, attach a sound file to the hint caption. (If you do not want the hint caption to appear on the slide, you can make the caption transparent and add no text.)
Accessibility in Adobe Captivate works better when all the slides have interactive content.

Source: Adobe, Creating Accessible Projects

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

October 1, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Replacing Modified Styles

by Kevin Siegel

During my advanced Adobe Captivate class, I stress the value in doing things faster and more efficiently within Captivate. Take formatting objects as an example. In the image below, there are several text captions positioned on a slide. The formatting of the captions is something less than consistent.

In the spirit of consistency, I'd like all of the captions in the image above to look the same. To get there, I'm going to apply the same object style on every object. As I select the captions, I discover, much to my horror, that the developer who gave me the project did not use five different object styles to format the captions as I had assumed. Instead, the developer selected each caption, one at a time, and then manually formatted each one using the formatting tools on the Properties panel. (You can easily determine that a style was overridden by selecting an object and, on the Properties panel, observing the plus sign to the left of the style's name.)

Because the captions on the slide have been manually formatted (and the Default Caption Style overridden), my mission to ensure object consistency has now been muddied. Before I can apply a consistent look to the slide objects, I first have to reset the style back to the Default Caption Style. That's a simple job–all I'll need to do is select a modified text caption and, on the Properties panel, Style area, click the Reset Style tool (shown below).

The selected text caption will revert to the style assigned to the caption, without any modifications. The problem is that I'll need to repeat these steps for every modified object. If a project has a significant number of objects with modifications, this would take a fair amount of time rendering the process inefficient.

There is a better, more efficient way…

On the Properties panel, Style area, select Replace modified styles (this option is deselected by default).

Select a slide caption that contains the formatting you would like to use project-wide. On the Properties panel, Style group, click the Save changes to Existing Style tool.

You'll be prompted to confirm the action by clicking the OK button.

Every modified caption will be reset and will now follow the formatting of the saved style. (Compare the image below with the first image above and you'll see that all of the text captions have taken on the appearance of the selected object.)

If you would like to see a demonstration of replacing modified styles across multiple slides, check out the video I created on the IconLogic YouTube channel.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

September 25, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Pretest Actions

by Lori Smith

We recently introduced you to Captivate's Pretest feature. In this article, I'm going to follow-up with Pretests and teach you how to control a Pretest Advanced Action. Here's the scenario: your client or boss wants to ensure that all the learners know the material by passing a quiz. The boss doesn't care if the learner spends the time watching the individual slides that make up the lesson, only that learners are given a fair opportunity to pass the quiz.

You move forward and design an eLearning lesson that contains an introductory slide (slide 1), some pretest questions (slides 2 through 5), eLearning content slides (slides 6 through 50) and a final quiz (beginning on slide 51). If the learner is able to pass the Pretest right out of the gate, then you will not require the learner to review the course content. Instead, you will allow the learner to jump straight to the final quiz. However, if the learner fails the Pretest, the learner will be required to move through the course content before taking the final quiz.

While the scenario above sounds complicated to implement within Captivate, there is an action built within the Pretest that will get you started. Select any Pretest slide on the Filmstrip and take a look at the Action group on the Quiz Properties panel. Just below the Failure Levels drop-down menu you'll see an Edit Pretest Action button.

Edit Pretest Action button

Clicking the Edit Pretest Action button will open the Advanced Action window containing a basic advanced action.

Standard IF statement.

Let's take a look at what the action does. In the IF area, a System Variable named cpInfoQuizPretestScorePercentageis being checked to see if the learner's score is greater than 50. This means that if the learner gets over half of the points allocated in the pretest, he or she passes the pretest.

Take a look in the success and failure areas. Both are sending the learner to the very next slide (using the Go to Next Slideoption).

Standard Else statement.

In the images below, I have edited the Action so that it will use the Jump to Slide option. Should the learner score higher than 50, the Action will jump the learner directly to slide 51 (the quiz). Should the learner score 50 or lower, the ELSE segment of the Action sends the learner to the first content slide for the lesson (slide 6).

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

September 19, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Align the Mouse

by Kevin Siegel

If you have recorded a software demonstration using Adobe Captivate, you have likely run across the issue of the dreaded "jittery mouse."

Here's the scenario: you are working on a project with several slides. On slide 5, the mouse is moving from point A to point B. On slide 6, the mouse has clearly gotten to point B.

Back on slide 5, you decide to move the mouse position (you can easily drag the mouse anywhere you want on the slide). And that's when the "jittery mouse" will bite you.

On slide 6 of the project, you'll notice that the mouse is no longer in the correct slide position because you moved the mouse on slide 5. If you were to play the project (previewing 5 slides is ideal for this kind of test), you would clearly see the mouse "jump" from its new position on slide 5 to its old position on slide 6. In fact, the jump looks almost as if the mouse pointer on slide 6 received some kind of jolt.

To fix the problem, you could go to slide 6 and attempt to manually drag the mouse pointer into the same position that you established on slide 5. But this solution isn't ideal because the mouse position has to be identical to the position on the previous slide. It will probably take several attempts to get it right. What's a developer to do?

Go to slide 6 (this is where the mouse pointer is not in the desired slide position)
Select the mouse pointer and choose Modify > Mouse > Align to Previous Slide.

Bam! This is the perfect cure for the jittery mouse.

Note: You could have also gone to slide 5, right-clicked the mouse pointer and selected Align to Next Slide (or selected the command via Modify > Mouse).

If you would like to see a demonstration of aligning the mouse pointer with previous or next slides, check out the video I created on the IconLogic YouTube channel.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

September 10, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Two-Bits for the Best Rate

by Kevin Siegel

You can easily record audio from within Captivate by choosing Audio > Record to. You can record audio directly to slide objects, a single slide, multiple slides, or the project background. Regardless of your choice, you'll find yourself in the Slide Audio dialog box.

After clicking the Device link in the Audio dialog box, the Audio Settings dialog box will open. This is where you have to make an important decision about your bitrate.

Captivate 5 bitrates

You have two choices in the Bitrate drop-down menu: Constant and Variable. Constant Bitrates (CBRs) produce smaller file sizes. By contrast, Variable Bitrates (VBRs) tend to produce audio with a higher, more consistent quality level than CBRs, but the VBR file sizes will be larger than CBRs. For that reason, most Captivate developers stick with Constant Bitrate.

Then you have to select from one of the four bitrate settings: CD, Near CD, Custom or FM. So many decisions… so little time. Bitrate is defined as the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time. Using a higher bitrate setting, such as CD Bitrate (128 kbps), will result in higher quality audio but a larger published lesson.

If you decide to use a higher quality bitrate than FM Bitrate, you should spend time experimenting with the options to see which selection sounds best to you. As a general rule, the FM Bitrate is more than adequate for eLearning audio that will be played through typical computer speakers or headsets.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.

September 6, 2013

Adobe RoboHelp: Variables in Topic Titles

by Willam Van Weelden

User Defined Variables have been a RoboHelp staple for a few years now. You were first introduced to variables in this 2009 IconLogic blog post. As a review, variables are placeholders for text that you need to use throughout a RoboHelp project (e.g.: a product name). You might be using the product name thousands of times within hundreds of RoboHelp topics. Should you need to change the name of the product, you would have to go through the entire project and manually change the product name, one-by-one (or use RoboHelp's Find/Change feature).

As an alternative to manually adding the product name throughout a project and then having to worry about manually updating the text later, you can create a variable. The variable will display the product name as if it were regular text, and insert the variable within topics, snippets, the Table of Contents (TOC), and/or the Index. Should the product name need to be changed, edit the variable text via the Variables pod and it will be updated everywhere. It's a powerful feature and very easy to use.

In this article, I want to show you a fantastic enhancement to variables that was introduced in Adobe RoboHelp 10: the ability to add variables within Topic Titles.

In older versions of RoboHelp, a Topic Title was static text, meaning that you had to manually type the Topic Title when you created the topic. If you added the topic to the TOC, the Topic Title appeared on the TOC. But since the Topic Title was static, a change to the Topic Title when editing the Properties of the topic meant that you also needed to edit the text that appeared on the TOC. The ability to add a variable within the Topic Title means the text will be linked to the Topic Properties and will automatically update everywhere.

Add a Variable Within a Topic Title

After you've created the variable, display a topic's Properties dialog box. (You can display the Properties dialog box for the topic via the Topic List pod by right-clicking the topic.)
On the General tab, click the Variables drop-down menu and and select a variable.
In the Topic Title field, select the location where you want to insert the variable.
Click the Insert button.

Now that the topic's Title is using a variable, should you update the variable at any time, the variable text will update within the topic text, title, Index and the TOC.

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Looking to learn RoboHelp? We offer a live, two-day online RoboHelp class once each month. Feel free to contact us to learn other ways to meet your RoboHelp training requirements.

September 4, 2013

Adobe Captivate: Add a Retake Quiz Button

by Kevin Siegel

I’ve had several students in my Captivate classes ask if it was possible to allow learners to retake a quiz. It’s not only possible, but the solution is very simple.

Choose Quiz > Quiz Preferences. From the list of Categories at the left of the Preferences dialog box, select Settings. From the Settings area, select Show Score at the End of the Quiz. (This will add a Quiz Results slide to the project, which is where the Retake Quiz button will appear once enabled.)

Adobe Captivate: Show Score at the End of the Quiz

With the Preferences dialog box still open, select the Pass or Fail category. From the If Failing Grade area, select Show Retake Button and then click the OK button to close the Preferences dialog box.

Adobe Captivate: Show Retake Button.

The Quiz Results slide will now include a Retake Quiz button. You can size and position the button anywhere on the slide just like any other button.

Adobe Captivate: Retake Quiz Button.

When the learner takes the quiz and fails, clicking the Retake Quiz button will automatically reset the quiz score. In addition, the learner will be taken back to the beginning of the quiz.

If you would like to see a demonstration of adding a Retake Quiz button to a project, check out the video I posted to the IconLogic YouTube channel.

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Looking for training on Adobe Captivate? IconLogic offers multiple live, online Adobe Captivate classes each month including Introduction to Adobe Captivate and Advanced Adobe Captivate.