Embedded Studio Videos on a Page Jump to Where They Are Placed

[Chris_Hofer]

tl;dr

It would be nice if the content did not "jump" to Studio videos if they are placed further down a content page...as this requires people to scroll back to the top of the screen.

The Issue

I recently discovered that if I embed a Studio video on an assignment page in a Canvas course...and the video is not the first thing people see at the top of the page (for example, if the page of content begins with multiple paragraphs of directions for students), the page will automatically "jump" to the video once the page has loaded.  This causes the students and instructors to have to scroll back to the top of the page to read the content before watching the embedded video.  In conversations with the Canvas Help Desk staff, I learned the following:

It looks as though we set intentionally set focus on the play button on the video once the Arc Media Player loads for accessibility reasons. This is what is causing the focus on the page to jump to the Arc video once the video loads. If this is something that you would like to see be changed, I recommend submitting a feature idea for this in our community. Doing this allows product teams to see your ideas and follow up with you on on your request if needed.

I'm not sure what those accessibility reasons are, and I'm not sure if this line from the "Fixed Bugs" in the July 13, 2019 Canvas Release is what is being referred to here:

Assignments

External tools retain correct focus within assignments for screen readers.

Thus...the reason for my request.  Canvas Case #04556185.

This idea has been developed and deployed to Canvas

For details see https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-17771 

[aks36]

Code is located in: /embedded-media~lti-bare-embedded-media-c6997bd7ea58271aac67.js 

specifically:

m.default.focus(function (e) {
              var t = e.playButton;
              (0, y.focusElement) (t)
            })

Would be great to have the ability to show the video as is in Studio, then an embed version with this feature disabled for other Canvas content and/or web page embeds.

[snugent]

I personally find this frustrating and I imagine most faculty and students will as well. I need to understand this decision better. I looked through the WCAG guidelines and I can't really see the justification for focus to be out of content order. In course content instructors place directions and other guides before the video to help students with viewing the video content.  Which WCAG guideline is this decision based on? 

[afromero2]

Hi Aaron, what's the complete url to download the script? I can't find it.

Regards.

[aks36]

Hey Alex,

Ours is located at: https://oursite.instructuremedia.com/__build__/default/embedded-media~lti-bare-embedded-media-e635ef...

Thanks.

[bgross1]

Please make it stop -- Need students to begin at the top of the page  - they already try and skip content - this just makes it seem justified to them!  Thank you!!

[julrich1]

This is extremely frustrating and doesn't make sense why they would add this feature or not give you the ability to turn it off.  

[ataylor30]

I've been noticing weird jumping behavior for a while, and now it all makes sense. I agree; this behavior isn't helpful and I can't see why this would be an accessibility change (though I'm not an accessibility expert).

[dslauson]

Many of our faculty have been using Studio to great effect as part of the content they include in their pages.  I don't understand why you would force users to jump past content on a page to a studio video.  Right now our students constantly have to scroll back up each time they visit a page that includes a studio video.  Beyond just annoying, it risks students missing content if they don't realize they need to scroll up.  This feels far more like a bug than some form of accessibility feature.

[dslusser]

I believe that Canvas currently has incorrect WAI-ARIA practice on the Studio (previously ARC) Videos that is causing navigation difficulty for all stakeholders in our organization. According to the WAI-ARIA Authoring Practices 8/14/2019 1.1 document, the keyboard focus should be "discernible and predictable" (WAI-ARIA, 2019). The current implementation of the keyboard focus when a Studio video is present on a page causes immediate focus on the play button, regardless of position of the Studio video on the page. The usability pattern causes significant challenges when navigating with a keyboard AND any other traditional means of navigation (mouse, touch, etc.). Upon page load, the focus jumps the entire page to a "random" Studio video present on the page. I use the word "random" because I cannot yet track down the exact pattern of focus when there are multiple Studio videos on one page; it changes based on browser cache refresh and traditional browser refresh/page load.

I am proposing that Canvas comes into compliance of WAI-ARIA and properly implements the WAI-ARIA discernible and predictable practices when a (or multiple) Studio videos are on a single page. This pattern should mirror the current exact pattern of a page when a Studio video is not present on a page; the first tab index should be the collapse/expand global navigation button.

[dslusser]

Also to make this argument even stronger against this very challenging UI/UX...Try adding Studio videos to multiple quiz questions then take the quiz. You have no idea where the page will end up or which question will be "selected" because of the focus on the Studio video. Is it question 1? Or maybe it's question 17? How about question 31? It all depends on where your Studio videos are in the quiz and how many videos are added.

canvas bug‌ scrolling bug‌ product release bug‌ bug list‌ canvas bug‌ actual bug‌ priority‌ ui‌ ux fail‌ ux‌ ux user experience hci human computer interaction‌ ui-ux‌ ui problems‌ poor ui functionality‌ aria‌ wai-aria‌ high-priority‌

erinhallmark‌, you seem to be "the face" on all of my Canvas notifications 🙂 so I'll ask you for guidance and direction. What other steps can be taken in order to get more eyes on this issue?