=][= Site accessibility for those with disabilities =][=

[Brother Tyler]

Something we didn't take into account when creating our themes/skins and deciding upon the settings for the appearance of the site was accessibility for those members with disabilities. While there are any number of impairments/disabilities, those that are most relevant here are visual impairments - blindness, color blindness, etc. My assumption at the time was that since this hobby is visually intensive, there was an extremely low chance that individuals with disabilities would be members of the community.

 

I'm embarrassed to say that I was dead wrong. We have at least one member that uses a screen reader to participate in the community. And where there's one, there may be others.

 

So we are looking into ways that we can improve site accessibility for members of the community that have disabilities. In order to do that, however, we need to know what areas of the site present difficulties for such members. Given that, we can evaluate where we can make the necessary improvements. One possible solution that we're looking into is developing a theme/skin specifically for such members, reducing the amount of largely useless information that appears so that these members can focus their attention on the important stuff. Other things we're looking into are where we can make adjustments to the settings on the existing skins. And we'll also look at individual account settings that members can select to improve their accessibility.

 

Things we need to know:

• Which device(s) do you use when visiting the site, PC or mobile?
• If you use an aid such as a screen reader, what do you use? You can respond with an answer as simple as "screen reader" or you can give specific details about the type of aid that you use.
• What areas of the site present you with accessibility problems? The more information you provide, the more understanding we'll have so that we can evaluate potential solutions. We are especially interested in the areas that are of the most importance to you, but feel free to let us know as many areas as you want.
• Anything else you can think of to help us figure out how we can improve your accessibility experience at the Bolter & Chainsword.

 

You may provide your response either as a reply in this discussion or, if you would prefer to remain anonymous (to the community at large), you are welcome to submit your response as a private message to me.

 

For everyone else: Please stay out of this discussion unless you have constructive input. There is no intent to strip everything out to appease a minority at the expense of the majority, but we want to ensure that everyone has the best experience possible when visiting the site. We'll do our best to minimize the impact on everyone else. If there are things that we can do for this segment of our community, and those things don't adversely affect everyone else in substantive ways, we owe it to these members to see to their needs. For anyone that doesn't quite understand what this is all about and why it's important, you can find more information at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility site https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/ . While we don't have a legal mandate to do this, and indeed, different countries have different requirements, we have an ethical responsibility to do our best for all of our members.

[alfred_the_great]

One fairly simple on might be to be have to have black text on a white background. 
 

I find white text on a black background quite hard to make out at times. 

[Special Officer Doofy]

4 hours ago, alfred_the_great said:

One fairly simple on might be to be have to have black text on a white background. 
 

I find white text on a black background quite hard to make out at times. 

 

You're not wrong. There are alot of studies that show in most cases it's easier to see dark on light than it is light on dark. Linking an article that makes this case which has its own links to psychological studies that show this incase a fellow frater or Brother Tyler is curious. The article name is "the dark side of dark mode" which I also thought was pretty funny. 

 

Spoiler

https://tidbits.com/2019/05/31/the-dark-side-of-dark-mode/

 

As I was typing I think it could help some fraters to have an alternative "light mode", I saw the theme tab at the bottom of the page where you can select off of the bolter and chainswords theme for a default one which then turns it to a white page with black lettering. I never knew about that. It could help some fellow fraters that are visually impaired to switch to the default theme. I only played around with it for a minute and on mobile, and I have no visual impairments and work nights so dark mode (white lettering on a black background) does fine for me.

[Brother Tyler]

The Bolter & Chainsword (Default) theme has white text on a dark background. The Default theme has black text on a white background. You can adjust your theme setting at the bottom of the page.

[alfred_the_great]

6 hours ago, Brother Tyler said:

The Bolter & Chainsword (Default) theme has white text on a dark background. The Default theme has black text on a white background. You can adjust your theme setting at the bottom of the page.

Unfortunately you lose a decent amount of functionality in the default theme. 

[Xin Ceithan]

I  certainly appreciate the effort on it’s own already  
 

Since becoming aware / being diagnosed with  a ( thankfully ) slowly progressing vision impairment, I am very  grateful that I can still participate in some way in what you rightly refer to as a very visual oriented hobby.
I must admit I am still adjusting to being considered a disabled person, so my amount of feedback is currently still somewhat limited.

But I’m sure as hell going to take any help offered to continue keeping in contact with the hobby 
 

 

Using mostly mobile devices, I feel that the latest upgrade to the forum is already an improvement - reading the old blue on white mobile default felt additionally tiring to me at least. And you can at least magnify the forum, so it’s easier to read content ( unlike BL publication, which steadfastly refuses enlarging text  ) 

 

I am still experimenting with screen readers but my major gripe is currently voice-to-text and that’s more device than forum related, I’m afraid. 
 

But if  I run across anything in the meantime, I know who to get in touch with now 

[Brother Tyler]

We are currently working on an accessibility theme. It will remove as much unnecessary stuff as possible, leaving only the essentials for screen readers. We don't have an estimate on when we'll have this theme finished but will post more information later.

 

In addition, other members have brought up screen readability/contrast. While the default theme is white text on a dark background, another theme has black text on a white background. We're also looking at a theme that allows members to customize the colors. The only "problem" with that is that the theme costs $30, then $10/6 months. That's not a huge amount, but as with any potential site purchase, we need to evaluate whether members will continue to donate so that we can pay for it and whether it provides sufficient value to our members.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

I've just realized that under the new forum format I can't find the edit option on any of my posts. Not sure where it's hidden, but when using a screen reader it doesn't show up in any obvious place.

 

Also, I have more feedback on the issue with alternative reactions to like. When I hit enter on like it briefly flashes up the menu of other responses, but it vanishes before I can do anything with it. Whether that's because it requires your mouse to be focusing on it and thus closes because I'm not using one, or that it is just a quick reaction thing I can't do with a screen reader, I'm not sure. 

[Cactus]

The three dots ... at the top right of any post opens a sub-menu. If it's your post one of those options is "edit".

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

Either the three dots are hidden from me, or one of these unlabeled elements are the three dots and the menu that they bring up is inaccessible. I don't have anyone sighted around to confirm which, so something to be looked into.

[Brother Tyler]

Is it possible to provide a transcript of how your screen reader reads a post? It might be that the screen reader assigns text to the "button" that isn't intuitive. A shorter post such as yours (immediately above this one) would be easier.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

heading level 3 visited link Marshal Valkenhayn
list of 5 items
visited link graphic Marshal Valkenhayn
+ FRATER DOMUS +
Location: Oklahoma
Faction: Daemons Of Khorne
list of 1 items nesting level 1
visited link (?)
visited link 474
list end nesting level 1
list end
list of 1 items
same page link (?)
list end
link Posted 58 minutes ago
Either the three dots are hidden from me, or one of these unlabeled elements are the three dots and the menu that they bring up is inaccessible. I don't have anyone sighted around to confirm which, so something to be looked into.
list of 3 items
same page link Back to top
button Multiquote
link Quote
list end
 

 

 

---

 

 

Of note, if I click the (?) link above the 474, it seems to act exactly like the 474. The reader sorts things from a left to right, top to bottom order into a virtual list for my convenience.

[Cactus]

I think it might be "list of three items". The three items for your posts are report, share and edit in that order.

On posts created by other users the list contains only two items, report and share.

 

If I'm correct I also expect you will have the same difficulty using the list as you do with the like button. They operate in a very similar way, presenting a vertical list of options to click on.

Edited April 6, 2023 by Cactus

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

The only list of three items I see is the one that has Back To Top, Multiquote, and Quote in it. What it's doing is announcing that there is a list, and then after when the list is over. But due to weird screen reader virtual display reasons it makes the start and end of that list into a virtual object of its own. I can filter things like that out, but I have most filters turned off for other projects I work on.

[Brother Casman]

I took a few minutes to turn on TalkBack on my phone and quickly step through options with my Android phone. Marshal Valkenhayn, I think the link you listed as "same page link (?)" is the button to open the menu.  I believe it is the option before the "Posted x minutes ago". Once you have opened the menu, I think you will have to step through all of the post elements to get to the menu items. I think the menu items should be next after the list that ends with the Quote button.

Edited April 7, 2023 by Brother Casman

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

Alright! Knowing when and where to look was a huge help. That did bring up the menu and allowed me to find it. If I have any more trouble with this I'll put more feedback here, but for the time being it seems to be working.

 

I tried applying similar techniques to the like menu responses, but that still vanishes before I can do anything with it. Still, a much lesser issue than not being able to edit or report.

[Brother Casman]

Glad I could help, Marshal.

 

@Brother Tyler there is an accessibility bug here with the menu - I think it's position in the underlying document is causing it to be read at the wrong spot. I don't know how much control we have over the code that makes up the site, so it might be something to pass on to Invision.

[Brother Tyler]

(Blast from the past)

 

This issue was way back on the burner, but it hasn't been forgotten.

 

I'm going to make two minor changes soon: Removing the Location and Faction from the profile "baseball card" that appears in content. For example, here's Brother Casman's as it currently appears in the post above (I've outlined the two elements to be removed in goldenrod):

 

 

These will still appear on each member's profile page, so the information will remain accessible (and editable). For example, you can see Brother Casman's profile @Brother Casman.

 

What this does for members that rely on screen readers is reduce the aural clutter. What this does for everyone else is reduce some of the vertical space in posts, which will be noticeable in the shorter posts (so not mine ). You'll still see a member's user group, group icon, pronouns (if they have selected any), and title (staff and former staff only).

 

The accessibility skin hasn't materialized, largely due to time limitations. That's still something that I'd like to do, whether it's modifying our existing skin or purchasing another one. I won't make any promises regarding time on that, though.

 

I'll also research any accessibility issues that have been brought up with Invision, adding our own if they haven't already come up.

 

Are there any other accessibility issues or suggestions?

[RolandTHTG]

Brother Tyler,

While I understand the reason for trying to get the vertical space reduced, I'd like to get the Faction labels added back. I thought it added to the "different chapters coming together" theme and provided a quick way of seeing where someone else may be coming from when they're talking about gameplay or lore representations. While some factions like the Black Templars tend to display their faction broadly, other members use personal icons and so their perspective isn't easily identifiable from just the icon.

In addition, I actually only saw this post when trying to figure out where the faction label had gone, because it is in amicus and not in news. 

 

If you just want to reduce spacing, from a Frater perspective there are several other areas of the "baseball card" that  seem to have excess spacing that could be trimmed. 
To use Brother Casman's card as an example again, the spacing between his Picture & User Group, between his User Group and his Badge, and especially the spacing above and below the post count (all circled in red below) are visibly much greater than the spacing between the pronoun line and the title on Casman's card (circled in blue). [Looking at your badge Brother Tyler, I think the spacing below the badge is the blue spacing while the space reserved above the badge is larger.]

If the red formatting is reduced to just the spacing of the blue formatting, it would have more than enough space saved to add back the Faction labels and still be a size reduction over the current card. 

[LameBeard]

Just to say I’m in the opposite camp to @RolandTHTG. I find the additional information annoying, particularly the repetition. I now use B&C almost exclusively on the phone to show less clutter, have turned off signatures etc - and I don’t have special accessibility needs. Many of us collect more than one army, so faction allegiance can seem arbitrary. I do, however, have nothing but admiration and respect for the frater who have chosen one faction and stuck to it loyally for years!

[Brother Tyler]

We are working on some "best practices" guides, especially for the Articles function, and one of my concerns is accessibility, especially with regard to images. So for those of you that use screen readers...

 

What do you hear after the word kerfuffle?

 

 

There is an image above this sentence and I didn't include an image title, so I'd like to know if your reader said anything about an image.

 

And now, what do you hear after the word fartlek?

 

 

There is an image after "fartlek" and it has the image title "Codex Supplement: Black Templars (9th edition)."

 

My gut feeling is that including an image title with any image enhances accessibility for those that use screen readers, but I'd like your feedback. Also, it would help to know exactly what your screen reader says to indicate that there is an image.