Adobe Captivate 9 - Accessibility

Overview

Produced by Kennesaw State University, this practical guide shows how to make Adobe Captivate 9 projects more accessible and usable for learners with diverse needs. Focused on hands-on production steps rather than theory, it walks instructional designers and e-learning developers through the Captivate settings and workflows that improve screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation, closed captions, and text-to-speech narration. Clear, step-by-step procedures help you apply accessibility techniques directly within your development cycle to produce more inclusive e-learning modules.

What you'll learn

• How to enable Captivate’s accessibility features so assistive technologies can interpret your content correctly.
• Best practices for writing descriptive slide and object labels that improve screen reader clarity and learner orientation.
• How to create logical tab order and keyboard navigation patterns to support non-mouse users and improve usability.
• Techniques for using slide notes as a single authoritative source for captions, transcripts, and text-to-speech narration.
• How to configure, preview, and refine closed caption timing and display using Captivate’s playbar controls.
• Practical methods for testing published output with screen readers and keyboard-only navigation to validate accessibility.

Practical outcomes

Followable procedures are organized around common production tasks: enable global accessibility options, add meaningful project metadata, assign accessible names to images and controls, and refine focus order so interactive elements move predictably. Applying these techniques will make Captivate content easier to navigate, more compatible with assistive technologies, and clearer for learners who depend on captions, narration, or keyboard interaction.

Who benefits

This guide is ideal for instructional designers, multimedia developers, course authors, accessibility reviewers, and remediation specialists working with Captivate 9. It targets users with basic to intermediate Captivate experience who want to integrate accessibility into everyday workflows. QA teams and auditors can also use the procedures as a concise checklist during testing and remediation.

How to use this guide

Work through the recommended sequence: enable accessibility options, populate project and slide descriptions, assign accessible names and roles, then set and test tab order. Use slide notes as the authoritative text source for captions and text-to-speech to maintain consistency. Publish early, run simple verification checks with a screen reader and keyboard-only navigation, and iterate—small refinements to timing, labels, or focus order often yield the largest usability improvements.

Hands-on exercises

Suggested activities reinforce the procedures and reveal edge cases. Try building a short module with labeled interactive elements, convert slide notes into synchronized captions, enable text-to-speech for selected slides, and perform a remediation pass using keyboard navigation plus a screen reader. These practical tasks help you apply the guide directly to real production scenarios and document remaining accessibility gaps.

Quick FAQ

Q: Can slide notes serve both captions and narration? A: Yes — keeping a single authoritative set of slide notes and converting them into closed captions or text-to-speech ensures consistency between visual and audio content.

Q: How do I validate keyboard accessibility? A: Test the published output using Tab, Shift+Tab, Enter, and Space to confirm focus order, visible focus indicators, and that controls trigger expected actions.

Final note

Use this guide as a practical production reference and checklist while you design, build, and test Adobe Captivate 9 modules. Its stepwise approach helps teams deliver more inclusive e-learning by improving screen reader compatibility, keyboard usability, and captioning quality.