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 Looking for Help Making Storyline 360 eLearning Modules WCAG 2.1 AA Compliant

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Kristyn Newby's profile image
Kristyn Newby ATD Member posted 11-14-2025 02:54 PM

Hi everyone,

Our team is working to make our Articulate Storyline 360 eLearning courses compliant with WCAG 2.1 Level AA. We’ve reviewed the accessibility guidelines, but we’re struggling to translate some of the requirements into specific steps or best practices within Storyline itself.

We’d love any tips, tricks, or examples from others who have successfully created accessible Storyline courses. Specifically, we’re looking for:

  • Minimum accessibility requirements that Storyline 360 can realistically meet
  • Features or settings that are must-dos for compliance (e.g., focus order, alt text, heading structure, keyboard navigation)
  • Common pitfalls or mistakes to avoid when building accessible content in Storyline

Any guidance, checklists, or practical examples would be greatly appreciated!

Scott Burnett's profile image
Scott Burnett ATD Member posted 11-19-2025 01:23 PM

Hello Krystyn,

It's been a number of years since I have used Articulate, having switched to Captivate a long time ago. But, for the most part, Articulate is already WCAG 2.1 AA compliant. By default, it is navigable by keyboard alone and has the ability to be captioned. The images should have alt text (with a good description) for all unless the image is decorative only. 

Where you need to take note is for the interactions. If they cannot be done by keyboard, are tables (especially tables nested in tables) they require certain actions like row and column headers. The use of styles (think Word); Title, heading 1, heading 2, heading 3, Table, bullets are all required. 

If you have documents inserted that the learner can access, make sure these are ADA compliant as well.

Make sure the written content is very different color than the background color. Notice the black text on white is easy to read, same with white on black. If you were to use Blue on Grey, it would be harder. 

For quizzes, drag and drop are right out. That is hard for screen readers to handle. 

I can actually go on and on. I used to teach a class on this. But, take a look here: https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/quickref/. It is a quick reference guide on this. Also, test it. NVDA is a good screen reader to use to test your course; https://www.nvaccess.org/. If you host the product, use an accessibility checker to get some feedback. Here is Articulates report on accessibility as well: https://www.articulate.com/about/accessibility/storyline-360-accessibility-conformance-report-vpat/. 

I hope this helps. 

Scott Burnett

Lesley Gaetjens's profile image
Lesley Gaetjens ATD Member posted 11-20-2025 09:03 AM

Hello @Kristyn Newby, great guidance from @Scott Burnett.

I would add that Storyline includes a built-in accessibility checker that can help identify potential accessibility issues before publishing. When you select Publish, a banner at the top will indicate the number of accessibility concerns. Click Review to see a summary.

The checker organizes issues by:

  1. WCAG2.1 Conformance - Level (A, AA, AAA)
  2. Complexity (how the fix can be applied i.e. AI/Manual/One click)

You can review each item and decide whether to apply corrections or address them manually before publishing.

Hope this helps,

Lesley Gaetjens

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