Author Topic: Screen reader accessibility suggestions for major issues.  (Read 3423 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline hadi (OP)

  • Aurora blind player
  • Chief Petty Officer
  • ***
  • h
  • Posts: 41
  • Thanked: 28 times
Topic update: I've listed all the suggestions and issues on the first post!
1. (Done)  Accessible name labels for turret and missile design windows controls. The screen reader is unable to read the edit fields and combo boxes, checkboxes, in the turret and missile design windows. Note that a lot of aurora windows have this issue but most of them can be easily figured but these two are harder to figure out without labels.
2. (done) Can there be a  display showing range to targets in ship combat display?
3. (done) Is it possible to get distance and bearing to the nearest body when double clicking on a contact, in the complete contact list?
4. Is it possible to designate a jump point and or a body as the center of the system in the system view so that we would measure distances between objects that way? Alternative idea below at number 8
5. Some info screens are not tabbable. e.g. colony summary, assigned governor/sector governor, fleet info, distance and bearing to nearest body+ship's current speed. can these be tabbable into?
6. Some sort of waypoint management window, so that we could place waypoints on  planets and bodies and jumppoints, or maybe like, place a waypoint 20000 KM away from X body at X degrees
7. There's an issue with the way the screen reader reads the tables. The system view however has a table that works well with the screen reader. I will try to provide more info on how to fix this later perhaps?
8. Alternative idea for suggestion number 4,  A button for jump points to show us nearby bodies, This can help us to set up guard stations near jump points. and if possible, enable this button for other bodies so we can find out what bodies are close to mars for example

I'd just want to say that we don't pay for this game and Steve is just sharing his hobby with us for free. We are not entitled to any of these suggestions and It is just  a request for steve to consider for a minority playerbase of aurora. Right now, I know six people who play aurora who are blind and enjoy the game.
original post
Hi there
Steve, do you think it's possible that you could add a text box that shows the bearing and distance of the  contact to the nearest body/star, when  you double click on the contact, in the complete contact list?
It could help us screen reader users, when we have a lost contact then we could find out what body the contact was close to, so then we could send our combat ships to go investigate further.

Thanks!
edit: renamed the topic so i could update it as i progress and hit areas of the game that are hard for me to figure out.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2020, 06:22:55 AM by hadi »
At this point, I was suspecting demonic intervention.
-Steve
 
The following users thanked this post: Graymane

Offline hadi (OP)

  • Aurora blind player
  • Chief Petty Officer
  • ***
  • h
  • Posts: 41
  • Thanked: 28 times
Re: Screen reader accessibility suggestions for major issues.
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2020, 02:11:50 PM »
Second suggestion that makes our life, much, much more easier:
In the system view, can we have a checkbox that marks a body  as the center of the system?
Reason: without seeing the map, it is hard for us to see the distances between planets and moons. It is also very tough to find out, which planet is the closest planet to a jump point.
When we, for example, mark a jump point as the center of the system, or another planet, then we can see the closest bodies to that jump point or to that planet.
« Last Edit: April 23, 2020, 02:17:00 PM by hadi »
At this point, I was suspecting demonic intervention.
-Steve
 
The following users thanked this post: Caplin

Offline LordLundin

  • Able Ordinary Rate
  • L
  • Posts: 3
  • Thanked: 1 times
Re: Screen reader accessibility suggestions for major issues.
« Reply #2 on: April 23, 2020, 02:22:54 PM »
I was thinking something like a button that says set focal measuring point, current Sol Center or current Earth.  You hit this and a dialogue appears where you get to pick anything from the center, jump points, plannets, moons, actually having fleets in there would be nice too as you can see what fleet can respond the fastest.  Then when you scroll down the system view list the distance is measured from the point you set.
 
The following users thanked this post: Caplin

Offline hadi (OP)

  • Aurora blind player
  • Chief Petty Officer
  • ***
  • h
  • Posts: 41
  • Thanked: 28 times
Re: Screen reader accessibility suggestions for major issues.
« Reply #3 on: April 26, 2020, 04:17:50 PM »
Some windows have some text that you can't tab into.
1. colony summary, Assigned governor and assigned sector command info for each colony, you can't tab into it.
2. fleet info. The place where it shows your fleet's current speed, and the distance to the closest body

Would be great if they were tabbable!
At this point, I was suspecting demonic intervention.
-Steve
 

Offline Caplin

Re: Screen reader accessibility suggestions for major issues.
« Reply #4 on: April 26, 2020, 11:02:57 PM »
The missile design window is really hard to navigate just because none of its controls have an accessible name. This should be prioritized if only because it's hard to do design without knowing what the controls are for. :)
 
The following users thanked this post: hadi

Offline LordLundin

  • Able Ordinary Rate
  • L
  • Posts: 3
  • Thanked: 1 times
Re: Screen reader accessibility suggestions for major issues.
« Reply #5 on: April 28, 2020, 04:01:13 AM »
So, I posted this in another topic but was urged by Hadi to put it on here for easier consolidation, so I'm just going to paste.  Btw the original topic was deleted to remove clutter.
NVDA, my screen reader does not read any names of edit / checkboxes in the missile and turret design interface.   I believe Hadi already provided info on lables, but if you need more information I'll just refer him to this topic.
Solution: lable all edit boxes, checkboxes, any unlabled lists that might appear, information fields (the edit fields that you can't change the value of).  
Thanks!
Also, to add to the topic, it would be awesome if we had a traditional mineral table such as those found in ms word or websites because it makes it easier to read with screen readers.
 

Offline Caplin

Re: Screen reader accessibility suggestions for major issues.
« Reply #6 on: April 28, 2020, 09:35:35 PM »
On the topic of waypoints and the like…

It would be nice if we had a way to designate a waypoint either to follow a body, like sighted  players can, or possibly with either coordinates or a bearing/distance from a known point. I like the latter just because it's a little more evocative than a Cartesian plain, even if that's exactly what things are internally :)

The issue is that clicking on the map is a lot harder for us, so some kind of waypoint management dialog would be nice. While I'm thinking, a way to get distance/bearing info in the movement orders screen for all bodies as we select them would be nice, if this doesn't already exist somewhere.
 

Offline Caplin

One more thought that I had about tables, specifically the accessibility contrast between, for instance, the Mining tab (bad) and the System View (pretty excellent).

The crutial difference between those two tables is that the Mining tab doesn't announce its headers properly. When you navigate each line with a screen reader you hear each mineral and a bunch of numbers without any context. The System View by contrast announces everything in a reasonable way, with headers before each new column. I don't know what's different about them internally but thought the distinction was worth mentioning.
 

Offline Caplin

Just a note…

It would be nice if the ship combat display would show range to targets. It's hard to figure out how far away things are at the moment, and very easy to accidentally shoot at objects which are far beyond the range of your fire control. If this is already possible, please let me know how to arrange it :)
 

Offline hadi (OP)

  • Aurora blind player
  • Chief Petty Officer
  • ***
  • h
  • Posts: 41
  • Thanked: 28 times
I have updated OP with this info
Topic update: I've listed all the suggestions and issues on the first post!
1. Accessible name labels for turret and missile design windows controls. The screen reader is unable to read the edit fields and combo boxes, checkboxes, in the turret and missile design windows. Note that a lot of aurora windows have this issue but most of them can be easily figured but these two are harder to figure out without labels.
2. Can there be a  display showing range to targets in ship combat display?
3. Is it possible to get distance and bearing to the nearest body when double clicking on a contact, in the complete contact list?
4. Is it possible to designate a jump point and or a body as the center of the system in the system view so that we would measure distances between objects that way?
5. Some info screens are not tabbable. e.g. colony summary, assigned governor/sector governor, fleet info, distance and bearing to nearest body+ship's current speed. can these be tabbable into?
6. Some sort of waypoint management window, so that we could place waypoints on  planets and bodies and jumppoints, or maybe like, place a waypoint 20000 KM away from X body at X degrees
7. There's an issue with the way the screen reader reads the tables. The system view however has a table that works well with the screen reader. I will try to provide more info on how to fix this later perhaps?

I'd just want to say that we don't pay for this game and Steve is just sharing his hobby with us for free. We are not entitled to any of these suggestions and It is just  a request for steve to consider for a minority playerbase of aurora. Right now, I know six people who play aurora who are blind and enjoy the game.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2020, 11:16:38 AM by hadi »
At this point, I was suspecting demonic intervention.
-Steve
 

Offline LordLundin

  • Able Ordinary Rate
  • L
  • Posts: 3
  • Thanked: 1 times
Re: Screen reader accessibility suggestions for major issues.
« Reply #10 on: May 15, 2020, 01:30:03 AM »
Oh one thing, I created an order template but I can't tab to them or find them anywhere.
 

Offline Caplin

Re: Screen reader accessibility suggestions for major issues.
« Reply #11 on: May 15, 2020, 02:37:35 AM »
Oh one thing, I created an order template but I can't tab to them or find them anywhere.

I believe they are one of the listed radio buttons on the fleet movement tab, along with locations and movement by system.
 

Offline Steve Walmsley

  • Aurora Designer
  • Star Marshal
  • S
  • Posts: 11649
  • Thanked: 20349 times
Re: Screen reader accessibility suggestions for major issues.
« Reply #12 on: May 22, 2020, 09:07:53 AM »
1. Accessible name labels for turret and missile design windows controls. The screen reader is unable to read the edit fields and combo boxes, checkboxes, in the turret and missile design windows. Note that a lot of aurora windows have this issue but most of them can be easily figured but these two are harder to figure out without labels.

I've added accessible names to all controls and sorted out the tab order for the missile and turret windows.
 
The following users thanked this post: Caplin, hadi, Zap0, UberWaffe

Offline Steve Walmsley

  • Aurora Designer
  • Star Marshal
  • S
  • Posts: 11649
  • Thanked: 20349 times
Re: Screen reader accessibility suggestions for major issues.
« Reply #13 on: May 22, 2020, 09:48:58 AM »
2. Can there be a  display showing range to targets in ship combat display?

I've added the range to the contact name in the same way as on the tactical map.
 
The following users thanked this post: hadi

Offline Steve Walmsley

  • Aurora Designer
  • Star Marshal
  • S
  • Posts: 11649
  • Thanked: 20349 times
Re: Screen reader accessibility suggestions for major issues.
« Reply #14 on: May 22, 2020, 10:10:40 AM »
3. Is it possible to get distance and bearing to the nearest body when double clicking on a contact, in the complete contact list?

I've shortened the contact list slightly and added a text field underneath. When you click on a contact it displays its location in that text field in the same way as a Fleet on the Naval Organization window.
 
The following users thanked this post: hadi