Reading Order Does Not Match Visual Order

A base layer has a heading added first, then an image, then a paragraph of body text. Later, a designer moves the paragraph above the image visually by dragging it upward on the slide. The visual order now reads heading, text, image, but a screen reader still announces heading, image, text, because the underlying object order on the Timeline never changed.

Rise blocks are read in the order they are stacked in the lesson editor, which usually matches the visual order automatically. This issue is much more common in Storyline, where an object's visual position and its reading order are two separate things that can drift apart.

Fix in Storyline 360

1. 1Open the Home ribbon and use the Tab Order button, or the Accessibility panel, to view and reorder the slide's reading order directly
2. 2Reorder any object whose position in that list does not match its visual position on the slide
3. 3Repeat this check on every layer separately, a layer's reading order is not inherited from the base layer
4. 4Re-check after any later edit that moves an object visually, since moving an object does not automatically update its reading order

Fix in Rise 360

1. 1Reorder blocks directly in the Rise lesson editor using its drag handles, this updates both the visual order and the reading order together
2. 2If a block's internal content (such as a labeled graphic or accordion) has its own internal ordering, check that separately
3. 3Test the published lesson with a screen reader to confirm the announced order matches what you see