Enhanced Focus for Reading Activities

Enhanced Focus for Reading Activities in Vantage*

By Isabel Cheng, Sr. Product Manager, and Jonathan Hritz, Sr. Product Manager

Reading activities in Vantage provide students with an opportunity to read a portion of text aligned with a section of chapter content, and then answer questions about the reading that are aligned with the chapter section’s learning objective. Each activity includes a headnote with instructions and some background information that students read at the beginning.

The Challenge

The visible focus—which helps users who are navigating a webpage with a keyboard know which items on a webpage have keyboard focus—was skipping the instructions, making it confusing for students who utilize assistive technology (AT). 

Users would be placed directly into the reading portion of the activity without having any of the context provided in the headnote, or the ability to navigate to that section using a keyboard. 

The Solution

To remediate this accessibility issue, we simply tweaked the tab index (the order in which the focus moves on a webpage) for keyboard navigation so that the focus would land on the headnote, allowing users to engage with that content if desired. 

While a simple fix from a software-development standpoint, its impact on a student utilizing their keyboard is significant, as it can affect their grades on these types of Vantage activities. 

It is vitally important that we ensure students who use AT can access all Vantage content as easily as students who don’t use AT.

*Published 04/23. © 2023 Sage Publishing. All rights reserved. All other brand and product names are the property of their respective owners.