Difference between revisions of "Manual:Screen Readers"

Revision as of 17:03, 29 July 2022

What Is A Screen Reader

The term, "Screen reader", refers to a piece of software on a computing device that is capable of examining the screen of the device and relaying that information to someone who is blind or visually impaired through the use of synthetic speech or Braille. Screen readers exist on desktops, laptops, mobile devices, and even gaming consoles.

Screen reader agnostic tips

Alt menus

Holding Alt to open the menubar currently does not work. As a workaround, Alt+P opens preferences and Alt+E opens the script editor.

Input line

Sent commands are selected and kept in the input line by default, which is useful for sighted users. To make it easier for screen readers, go to preferences - Input line tab - and select 'Auto clear the input line after you sent text'.

Main Window

To switch between the input line and the main window, use Ctrl+Tab. This will allow you to review text using the following shortcuts -

Output review shortcuts
Left, Right, Up, Down	Navigate letter by letter
Ctrl+Left, Ctrl+Right	Navigate word by word
Shift+Left, Right, Up, Down	Select text letter by letter
Ctrl+Shift+Left, Right, Up, Down	Select text word by word
Home	Go to the beginning of the line
Ctrl+Home	Go to the beginning of the window (first line, first letter)
End	Go to the end of the line
Ctrl+End	Go to the end of the window (last line, last letter)
PageUp	Jump a visual window's height up
PageDown	Jump a visual window's height down
Ctrl+C	Copy selection
Ctrl+Shift+C	Copy selection as HTML

Triggers

In Mudlet, triggers can have a parent/child relationship. But for those new to creating triggers, this may not be what you want. At this time, this relationship is not indicated by screen readers. To ensure that you are not creating a child trigger, simply arrow up to the top of the list. You'll hear the announcement, "Triggers". When you do so, and you click the, "Add Item button, you are guaranteed to create a trigger that is not grouped under one of your previous ones.

Screen Reader and Operating System Specific Information

The pages linked below will serve to detail how to use Mudlet with a screen reader. As Mudlet is a cross-platform client, hints and tips to get the most out of using it will be given for each of the platforms it's available on.

tips for game admins

The following are tips that can help MUD owners/administrators make their games more accessible to screen reader users.

Sounds

Sounds are a great way of letting a blind or visually impaired user know that something has happened. Especially during fast-paced activities such as combat. They can be as simple as alerts, such as chats or tells, to a full on experience complete with combat sounds, music, and ambiances.

Sounds can either be sent by the server and downloaded to the client, or can be made using triggers by the player. MSP, GMCP, and MSDP can all be used to accomplish this.

Avoid ASCII Art

ASCII art can be a major hindrance to screen reader users. If your MUD has a lot of ASCII art, please consider creating a blind mode, or screen reader mode that can be switched on at any time. Optionally, asking new accounts/characters whether or not they're using a screen reader during character generation and then setting a flag or series of flags to tailor the display is wonderful, because screen reader users do not have to remember a list of options to toggle on and off. ASCII art on the start screen isn't a huge problem, as most often, a blind or visually impaired player will read through it once and then not need to again. The goal here is not to take away anything from sighted players.

Tables

Presenting information in tabular format can be a great way to visualize data for a sighted user, but when a screen reader user tries to read this table, they do not have the ability to walk through the cells. This is because, while screen readers do in fact provide table navigation commands, they require markup which isn't present in plain text. Please consider breaking up the information into lines with commas or colons which will make things much clearer. Tables in MUDs can often appear as streams of indecipherable data.

@@ Line 65: / Line 65: @@
 * [[Accessibility on Linux]]
-== tips for game admins.. ==
+== tips for game admins ==
-so you want your game to be accessible with screen readers? first, i thank you for taking this step and appreciate that, here are a few important tips to insure having a smooth playing experience for screen reader users.
-* sounds, sounds, sounds, i can't stress how having a sound for each thing in your game important, starting from sounds to your maps, ambiences, to make them come to life and that i get a feeling of where i am, to music so that whoever prefers listening to  music while playing, going to sounds for important notifications in the game such as channel notifications and important notifications such as being given something, and sounds for battle, that's for sure, who wouldn't love to listen to the battle sounds and the sword taking the monster down in 2 or 3 shots, or his leg punching a wild boar.
+The following are tips that can help MUD owners/administrators make their games more accessible to screen reader users.
-* * no fancy art please, so i hate this, when during the mud there are so many $$$$$$$$$$ and so many stars, what did i do in my life to hear all that? the real issue is that it causes so much spam on our part, making our response even slower more than what it should be in some important situations.
-* * * tables, no to them, please, make your things in simpler format in which i can read, tables are not spam, but in fact they make reaching information a bit hard and so annoying that i might break my laptop.
+===== Sounds =====
-* *no indentations, i don't want so many spaces in the middle while reading important data as it also makes it hard, especially if i want to know how a word is typed, i will have to read so many spaces to find it, which becomes annoying, same for blank lines as it makes response slower regarding some data, if they contain blank lines.
-* i hope that helps, more  will be added as soon as they come to mind. thanks for wanting to make your game accessible, it really helps a lot, we really appreciate you.
+Sounds are a great way of letting a blind or visually impaired user know that something has happened. Especially during fast-paced activities such as combat. They can be as simple as alerts, such as chats or tells, to a full on experience complete with combat sounds, music, and ambiances.
+Sounds can either be sent by the server and downloaded to the client, or can be made using triggers by the player. MSP, GMCP, and MSDP can all be used to accomplish this.
+===== Avoid ASCII Art =====
+ASCII art can be a major hindrance to screen reader users. If your MUD has a lot of ASCII art, please consider creating a blind mode, or screen reader mode that can be switched on at any time. Optionally, asking new accounts/characters whether or not they're using a screen reader during character generation and then setting a flag or series of flags to tailor the display is wonderful, because screen reader users do not have to remember a list of options to toggle on and off. ASCII art on the start screen isn't a huge problem, as most often, a blind or visually impaired player  will read through it once and then not need to again. The goal here is not to take away anything from sighted players.
+===== Tables =====
+Presenting information in tabular format can be a great way to visualize data for a sighted user, but when a screen reader user tries to read this table, they do not have the ability to walk through the cells. This is because, while screen readers do in fact provide table navigation commands, they require markup which isn't present in plain text. Please consider breaking up the information into lines with commas or colons which will make things much clearer. Tables in MUDs can often appear as streams of indecipherable data.