Not operable, not completed

A mandatory training gets assigned, a few weeks later the completion rate appears in the report. 98 percent. That looks good, and about the missing two percent the report says nothing.

That is exactly where the problem sits. Whoever could not operate the training appears in the report just like someone who did not want to work through it: not completed. From the number alone the two cases are indistinguishable, yet they need entirely different responses.

This is not a training problem

When someone cannot complete a prescribed instruction because the interface does not allow it, two gaps open at once. The person did not receive the content, and the organisation has no record for them. A line is missing in the audit, and the reason for it is the most uncomfortable one there is.

For public bodies there is a legal layer on top that often gets overlooked. The German BITV 2.0 does not apply only to the public website. Section 2a states explicitly that it also covers websites addressed exclusively to a defined group of people, such as intranets or extranets. An internal training portal is precisely that.

What we built

Our player for interactive trainings now meets WCAG 2.2 at level AA and is fully keyboard-operable. A few points from it, because they show what this is really about:

After every slide change the focus lands on the slide heading, and after checking an answer on the result. That sounds like a detail and is the difference between a lecture and a scavenger hunt: if you cannot see where you are, you otherwise hear half the page again after every click.

Knowledge checks use ordinary form controls, not rebuilt ones. Rebuilt controls are the most common reason a form stays invisible to assistive technology.

And the point where accessibility in trainings usually gets decided: the matching exercise. A task solvable only with a mouse and only by dragging reliably excludes people. The same question can now be answered three ways: by dragging, by keyboard, or through a select field. Every movement is announced.

Plus narration with a transcript, a clean heading hierarchy without jumps, a visible focus ring, respect for reduced motion, minimum target sizes and contrast values in the design.

What is still missing

Subtitles for embedded videos are missing, because the data model of the video block does not currently provide for them. That is a real gap, not a detail, and it is stated here because this is where it belongs.

Two weeks ago we wrote that the accessibility declaration is the one compliance document that must name its own shortcomings, and that non-conformant is a permissible answer as long as you explain what does not work. It would be silly to write that and then leave out the gap in our own product.

The side effect

A training that runs by keyboard is faster for everyone else too. And one that accommodates screen readers necessarily has a structure you can also follow when skimming. Accessibility is rarely only for those it is made for.

More on the e-learning page and on the accessibility declaration.