How to Fix Focus Order in Storyline 360

Overview

Storyline lets you place objects anywhere on a slide, but that visual placement doesn't automatically set the order assistive technology uses. A screen reader user can end up hearing a button announced before the instructions that explain what it does, even though visually the instructions come first.

Step-by-step instructions

1. 1

   Open the slide with the problem.

2. 2

   Go to Slide, then Tab Order.

3. 3

   Read the current order top to bottom in the panel.

4. 4

   Compare it against how the slide actually looks on screen.

5. 5

   Drag items into the sequence a sighted learner would naturally read in, generally top to bottom, left to right.

6. 6

   Close the panel and Tab through the slide yourself to confirm it now makes sense as a sequence.

Screenshots

Tips

• Check tab order every time you add a new object to a slide, especially late additions, they default to the end of the sequence, which is rarely where they belong.
• Read the tab order out loud to yourself as if you were the screen reader, it makes mismatches obvious fast.
• A logical order usually mirrors your reading order: heading, then body content, then interactive controls like buttons last.

Common mistakes

• Adding a new object to a slide late in production and never checking where it landed in the tab order.
• Assuming visual layout and reading order are the same thing, in Storyline they often aren't.
• Fixing tab order once and not rechecking it after further slide edits.

Why it matters

A keyboard or screen reader user may hear things in an order that doesn't make sense, like a button announced before the instructions that explain it.