Hello everyone.
Discord. Many people in the blind community have heard of it. Many people in the blind community, at least to my knowledge, consider its accessibility to be... laughable, at best. But let me tell you a story.
In late may I posted to Discord's forums, advocating for the need for increased accessibility. Within a day my post had gotten over forty upvotes from the community.
You can find the post here: https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360043674232-Discord-Accessibility-For-Blind-Users-Opening-The-Bags
Shortly thereafter I joined the Discord beta testing program for iOS, and with the help of a sighted individual who was familiar with voiceover, we began compiling a ticket with every single unlabeled element and voiceover focus related issue. A process which is going to continue indefinitely as Discord updates, to ensure that blind users have equal access to the features Discord incorporates into their app.
You can find that here: https://trello.com/c/YV1NDxy8
Now, fast forward three months and very little has been heard about accessibility from Discord at all.
That is, however, until version 3.1.1 dropped to the public four days ago. A relatively minor update for most people except for the fact that in the release notes, this little nugget was included.
"Improved the accessibility labeling around the app to make using VoiceOver easier."
Surprisingly, Discord waited until the actual release to include this. I saw no evidence they were working on it in the beta. However I can confirm that the app is, thanks to these labels, a fair bit easier to use.
Is everything labeled?
Sadly no. Not at this time. However as I have indicated above, with the help of my bug finder partner we are continuing to test features in the beta to ensure that as they are added to Discord they are accessible, and Discord has taken notice of that already. Recently a new user action sheet was introduced in chat windows. An action sheet which has a labeled element voiceover users can use to dismiss it, even though nothing is labeled as such to the naked eye.
So what now?
I am only one blind person, who uses Discord in one way. I am certain that other people use it in different ways. I am certain that you use it differently than I, should you use Discord at all. Which is why I would like to invite you, as a blind person, to help shape the app for others like yourself going forward.
But how?
To get started, you will need to join the Discord Testers server, which you can do so by going here: https://discord.gg/discord-testers
To register for the actual iOS beta (works on both iPhone and iPad at present and as well as in iOS 13) go here and follow the instructions: https://dis.gd/testflight
Hope to see you there!
Have questions? I will be monitoring this thread and will respond to any difficulties you may encounter as promptly as I can. Should you wish to find me on Discord though, simply ping Gar.
By Gar, 30 August, 2019
Forum
iOS and iPadOS
Comments
Actually it's working much…
Actually it's working much better on iOs. they are fixing more and more problens every beta build taht comes out, and the team are wonderful to deal with now.
I am not finding it’s at all accessible am I missing something?
Hey guys, hope everyone’s doing well in the new year. Now that classes are mainly online I am finding a lot of groups on Discord are being run for each class with lots of notes and study sheets being shared between the students on Discord. I am really disappointed because I attempted using Discord several weeks ago and had heard that it is relatively accessible on here. When I attempted to join several servers run by my school I found it nearly impossible to join them and then switch between servers
Anyway sorry for the long comment but basically I just wanted to say I am having a very different experience than many on here who say it is fairly useable on iOS I find it very frustrating and I am a person who
Am I missing something? find myself to be a fairly intermediate user on iOS
I agree with you.
I consider myself an expert iOS user, and I still have a lot of difficulties with Discord on iOS, whether it be my iPhone or iPad. There are a lot of basic functions that work just fine for me. My biggest issue with Discord is with its voice over focus and the instability they’re in. It jumps around focus too much especially in the text channels. I also wish there was a way easier process for muting and on muting one’s self on iOS.
discord Much Better
Hi all,
I've tried out Discord several times int he last 3 years with limited success...
Until this week.
I've beenusing both Windows Desktop version with doug Lee's jaws scripts and iOS version and although a little confusing at first I find the accessibility much improved. In fact it is now much more accessible than Clubhouse which has gone down hill as it's gotten more popular and had more features added.
I think the key is, take time to learn how the interface is structured. Most people don't do this and assume it's accessibility that is causing the problem when it's simple unfamiliarity.
And yes I'm just as guilty.
So, to all those who have been advocating for better accessibility, thank you very much, I may even become a Discord convert.
Suggestions for Mac app
I've just started using the Discord Mac app, and have two issues. I would appreciate either a workaround, or someone in the beta group reporting the issues.
First issue: If I hit Command+/ to view the list of key binds, the key binds themselves are displayed as images, some of which are labeled, but most of which are unlabeled. Web searches also turn up lists of Discord key binds that are unlabeled images. Very frustrating.
Second issue: I wish I had a VoiceOver keyboard shortcut that would jump VO focus to the first unread message in a thread. I can jump focus to the list of messages with VO+Command+X, but then what? Pressing VO+Command+H takes me to the header for the first message, which is usually old. Escape takes me to the chat text field, and I can move to previous header from there, but that is the most recent unread message. If there's a way to move to the oldest message that is also unread, I can't find it.
And a nit: How to jump to next thread with unread messages? I can Option+Up/Down Arrow to move between threads, but I'm really only interested in the threads with unread messages.
Thanks for any and all help. Discord is much more usable today than it was when I first tried it three years ago.