NationStates

I was wondering if any of the mods could direct me to resources concerning online forum accessibility. You see, I am legally blind, and thus have found it difficult to use the site with my assistive technology. My solution, thus far, has been to, stupidly, turn off my assistive technology (my magnifier and screen reader) whenever utilizing the fora, thus resulting in major eyestrain. I know I should have brought this up sooner, but any advice or resources would be greatly appreciated, so I can enjoy this site to the same degree as my sighted peers.

We are a phpBB forum, so any tools or techniques that work on those should help you here.

Beyond that, what is it that we can do for you? I'm not sure why you need to turn off your screen reader here.

I hope nobody minds me jumping in but as a blind user a couple of folks have asked me if I can provide any pointers regarding using the forum with accessibility software.


I use JAWS with the NS forum and I initially found it quite hard to navigate until I figured out a working flow.

The most useful keyboard shortcut keys to get around the forum are those that handle lists, which in JAWS is the letter L.

By hitting L it will take you to each Division list which hold the forums. This isn't particularly helpful on the main page which lists all of the forums, but it will get you to where you need to be. It's actually best to just struggle through learning all of the different forum subjects so you can just go to your favorites by searching for them.

So in JAWS (and probably Magic, the freedom scientific magnifier), hit l and then arrow down once to hear the first item in each list. The forums typically use definition lists, so you can ignore any list that isn't described as a definition list.

The most confusing thing for the totally blind user is the gameplay forum, which also has a gameplay subforum. It can get you stuck in a loop where you click on the main forum link, when you meant to click on the sub forum (which has all the actual posts).


Once inside a forum, the list keyboard shortcut can really come into it's own. By hitting it until you hear the list with 25 items, you know then that each time you hit the list keyboard key, you will hear a new thread subject. Then you can just click and you'll be in the thread.

So,, here's a working example in JAWS:
Go to the main forum page at http://forum.nationstates.net/
Hit the l key until you hear the first definition list with one item.
Arrow down once and you will hear Diplomacy.
This is a group of forums relating to nation states diplomacy.
Hit l again and you will hear a list of 5 items. These are the sub forums
Each forum is contained in a definition list, so hit L once more and then arrow down to read the forum name.
Arrow down once more and it will describe the forum contents.
Arrow up to the forum link and click on it.
This should open the Factbooks and National Information forum.
Hit l until you hear list of 25 items. This is the list of threads shown on the page.
Each thread is contained in it's own definition list, so hit l once more and the first thread list is selected. Arrow down to read it's subject and keep arrowing down to read the rest of the information about the thread.
Open the thread to read it by clicking on it's link.
Inside a thread the most useful key is the heading keystroke. In jaws that's the h key. Hit it once and the heading level 2 is the forum title. Hit it again and the first post in the thread is selected. Each post in the thread has a heading level 3 and you can use it to rapidly skip down the posts, using the arrow keys to read the ones that you are interested in.
To post a reply, I just search for the Post a Reply link and then click it. Be sure and read the entire thread before posting a reply.
Be sure your reply is pertinent to the thread you are posting in. I know that's obvious but I'm covering my rear end.

Once you've made a few posts you'll probably find the "View my posts" feature incredibly useful. I use the JAWS link dialog to go to it quickly, but if you aren't using JAWS you might want to bookmark the View My Posts link after you locate it. It's the fastest way to watch the threads you've participated in.

I think that's about the best I can do for a quick primer on the forum here. You are welcome to contact me with specific questions via TG if you like.

To the admin / mods, if I shouldn't have responded here, please don't hurt me. :)

I find it very insightful, Cerb, and I hope it helps the OP.

Question for you: would it help if one of the Gameplay forums was renamed? Either the category or the subforum itself?

Crazy girl wrote:I find it very insightful, Cerb, and I hope it helps the OP. :)

Question for you: would it help if one of the Gameplay forums was renamed? Either the category or the subforum itself?

It would certainly help if they were different. Having two links with the same name but different destinations is quite confusing. I've got no recommendations on what you could change one of them to, but it sure would help for new people that are using assistive technology.

I will be totally honest and state that I absolutely avoided the NS forums for a very long time because phpBB doesn't have a particularly accessible theme. Determination to participate made me find a working solution, but it's still not a good work flow when compared to other forums. This is because of the move away from tables which are the biggest help to a blind user in a forum environment and the lack of header tags on the forum names.

If the templates could be hacked just to add header tags to forum names and thread titles, the whole thing would become instantly more usable. I suspect Violet doesn't want to mess with the phpBB templates but just that simple hack would make the blind members have a much easier way to participate.

I think the name change should be fairly simple (yes, the biggest hassle would be coming up with an appropiate name )

The rest I honestly have no idea how easy or hard it would be, but I'll poke an admin about both issues.

Perhaps change the category from "Gameplay" to "Game Mechanics", a lot of people (due to the subforum name) consider issue-playing separate from Gameplaying anyway.

This does have admin attention.

We'll consider possible changes to forum names to improve things.

Please let me know (either through this thread or via salusa@nationstates.net) what else we can do to make both the forum and the games more accessible.

(This is rather embarrassing to me as around 10 years ago I went through an entire website to make sure it complied with every single requirement and recommendation for accessibility, yet I never did so here. Consider me appropriately chastised.)

Or perhaps the larger gameplay forum could be called "The Game".

Well the game side of things is very accessible, so set your mind at rest there. The only caveat to that statement is that the most accessible theme is antiquity.

All of the newer themes have abandoned the table format for RMB posts in favor of divs. Divs look nice but aren't helpful. :) Still all the time we've got antiquity we should be fine. Perhaps have a link on the site that you can click to switch it to antiquity if that is not the current theme.

Something like [url=antiquity.nationstates.net]Click for screen reader optimized site.[/url]

You could embed it as a 1px graphical link so that the sighted won't see it.

I appreciate any efforts made to make things easier. I actually came to NS because I found it on a list of accessible / blind friendly games.

Cerberion wrote:Well the game side of things is very accessible, so set your mind at rest there. The only caveat to that statement is that the most accessible theme is antiquity.

Good to know.

Cerberion wrote:All of the newer themes have abandoned the table format for RMB posts in favor of divs. Divs look nice but aren't helpful. Still all the time we've got antiquity we should be fine. Perhaps have a link on the site that you can click to switch it to antiquity if that is not the current theme.

Something like [url=antiquity.nationstates.net]Click for screen reader optimized site.[/url]

You could embed it as a 1px graphical link so that the sighted won't see it.

I've made a note to look into this.

Please let us know if we break anything or screw it up. As we don't use screen-readers, its much harder for us to test things.

Always happy to test and provide feedback on accessibility.

Fischistan wrote:Or perhaps the larger gameplay forum could be called "The Game".

I think that's a bit off. All of the forums under "Diplomacy" and "World Assembly" are also the game.

The simplest solution would be "Game Play" for the master and "Gameplay" for the sub-forum. Cerberion could tell us whether his reader could make the distinction easily enough.

Cerberion wrote:If the templates could be hacked just to add header tags to forum names and thread titles, the whole thing would become instantly more usable. I suspect Violet doesn't want to mess with the phpBB templates but just that simple hack would make the blind members have a much easier way to participate.

I'm very happy to modify templates. So the problem is that forum and thread titles are wrapped in regular "a" link tags, rather than header tags such as h1 and h2, is that right?

Steel Butterfly wrote:

Fischistan wrote:Or perhaps the larger gameplay forum could be called "The Game".

I think that's a bit off. All of the forums under "Diplomacy" and "World Assembly" are also the game.

"National Affairs"

Cerberion wrote:I hope nobody minds me jumping in but as a blind user a couple of folks have asked me if I can provide any pointers regarding using the forum with accessibility software.


I use JAWS with the NS forum and I initially found it quite hard to navigate until I figured out a working flow.

The most useful keyboard shortcut keys to get around the forum are those that handle lists, which in JAWS is the letter L.

By hitting L it will take you to each Division list which hold the forums. This isn't particularly helpful on the main page which lists all of the forums, but it will get you to where you need to be. It's actually best to just struggle through learning all of the different forum subjects so you can just go to your favorites by searching for them.

So in JAWS (and probably Magic, the freedom scientific magnifier), hit l and then arrow down once to hear the first item in each list. The forums typically use definition lists, so you can ignore any list that isn't described as a definition list.

The most confusing thing for the totally blind user is the gameplay forum, which also has a gameplay subforum. It can get you stuck in a loop where you click on the main forum link, when you meant to click on the sub forum (which has all the actual posts).


Once inside a forum, the list keyboard shortcut can really come into it's own. By hitting it until you hear the list with 25 items, you know then that each time you hit the list keyboard key, you will hear a new thread subject. Then you can just click and you'll be in the thread.

So,, here's a working example in JAWS:
Go to the main forum page at http://forum.nationstates.net/
Hit the l key until you hear the first definition list with one item.
Arrow down once and you will hear Diplomacy.
This is a group of forums relating to nation states diplomacy.
Hit l again and you will hear a list of 5 items. These are the sub forums
Each forum is contained in a definition list, so hit L once more and then arrow down to read the forum name.
Arrow down once more and it will describe the forum contents.
Arrow up to the forum link and click on it.
This should open the Factbooks and National Information forum.
Hit l until you hear list of 25 items. This is the list of threads shown on the page.
Each thread is contained in it's own definition list, so hit l once more and the first thread list is selected. Arrow down to read it's subject and keep arrowing down to read the rest of the information about the thread.
Open the thread to read it by clicking on it's link.
Inside a thread the most useful key is the heading keystroke. In jaws that's the h key. Hit it once and the heading level 2 is the forum title. Hit it again and the first post in the thread is selected. Each post in the thread has a heading level 3 and you can use it to rapidly skip down the posts, using the arrow keys to read the ones that you are interested in.
To post a reply, I just search for the Post a Reply link and then click it. Be sure and read the entire thread before posting a reply.
Be sure your reply is pertinent to the thread you are posting in. I know that's obvious but I'm covering my rear end.

Once you've made a few posts you'll probably find the "View my posts" feature incredibly useful. I use the JAWS link dialog to go to it quickly, but if you aren't using JAWS you might want to bookmark the View My Posts link after you locate it. It's the fastest way to watch the threads you've participated in.

I think that's about the best I can do for a quick primer on the forum here. You are welcome to contact me with specific questions via TG if you like.

To the admin / mods, if I shouldn't have responded here, please don't hurt me.

Thank you very much! I must admit my skills with JAWS (version 9.0) are not quite where they should be, and my technology instructors never bothered to teach me how to navigate online fora, or really how to navigate the internet using alternative techniques, period. I normally rely on MAGIC (version 11.0) for most internet matters, as I got too frustrated with JAWS at times. However, I have noticed that both on ZBB and NS that MAGIC does not want to play nice- the screen jumps all over the place, so it is hard to click on the tags I want to use in a post.

I think a part of this is my realizing that I'll probably need more continuous training with my assistive technology so that I can become more proficient and not wear out what little residual vision I do have.

Is there any way other players can help once you've reached the threads you want? I know someone -- Cerberion, maybe? -- found coloured text hard to handle (or was it just particular colours?). Anything else? (This is not an evil excuse to be rid of animated smilies, but ... well, I'd be quite willing to sacrifice ...)

Frisbeeteria wrote:The simplest solution would be "Game Play" for the master and "Gameplay" for the sub-forum. Cerberion could tell us whether his reader could make the distinction easily enough.

The screen reader can definately tell the difference between gameplay and game play.
That would work, though less proficient users may still get confused.

[violet] wrote:

Cerberion wrote:If the templates could be hacked just to add header tags to forum names and thread titles, the whole thing would become instantly more usable. I suspect Violet doesn't want to mess with the phpBB templates but just that simple hack would make the blind members have a much easier way to participate.

I'm very happy to modify templates. So the problem is that forum and thread titles are wrapped in regular "a" link tags, rather than header tags such as h1 and h2, is that right?

Correct. By making the forum categories h1 and the forums contained in that category h2, you'll make life a breeze.

The best option is (I think):
h1 = forum categories, such as diplomacy or gameplay
h2 - the forums, such as General Assembly
H3 - The thread subject.

That's going to be great to allow people to navigate the entire forum with just using the letter h on the JAWS keyboard map.

Korintar wrote:

Thank you very much! I must admit my skills with JAWS (version 9.0) are not quite where they should be, and my technology instructors never bothered to teach me how to navigate online fora, or really how to navigate the internet using alternative techniques, period. I normally rely on MAGIC (version 11.0) for most internet matters, as I got too frustrated with JAWS at times. However, I have noticed that both on ZBB and NS that MAGIC does not want to play nice- the screen jumps all over the place, so it is hard to click on the tags I want to use in a post.

I think a part of this is my realizing that I'll probably need more continuous training with my assistive technology so that I can become more proficient and not wear out what little residual vision I do have.

I strongly recommend you read Surf's up by freedom scientific. It's a great lesson on surfing the web with JAWS and Magic.
You can read it at this site.

Ardchoille wrote:Is there any way other players can help once you've reached the threads you want? I know someone -- Cerberion, maybe? -- found coloured text hard to handle (or was it just particular colours?). Anything else? (This is not an evil excuse to be rid of animated smilies, but ... well, I'd be quite willing to sacrifice :palm: ...) :p

Well the big problem for the totally blind user is they don't see any color, so mod warnings for example could be missed unless it's made clear that it is a warning. You can't rely on the color alone.
As for animated gifs etc. They don't bother me at all.

Another recommendation for my blind friends out there:
1. Press alt + E to go to the User Control Panel link, and then click it.
2. Hit H until you get to the User Control Panel (Heading level 2).
3. Arrow down until you hear board preferences and click on it.
4. Arrow down and click on Edit Display Options.
5. Adjust your settings so you remove more or less anything graphical. I turn off images, flash animations, smilies, signatures, and avatars.

That makes reading the board faster. Makes it load faster too.

Cerberion wrote:By making the forum categories h1 and the forums contained in that category h2, you'll make life a breeze.

The best option is (I think):
h1 = forum categories, such as diplomacy or gameplay
h2 - the forums, such as General Assembly
H3 - The thread subject.

I've given this a shot. Please let me know if I got it right!

[violet] wrote:

Cerberion wrote:By making the forum categories h1 and the forums contained in that category h2, you'll make life a breeze.

The best option is (I think):
h1 = forum categories, such as diplomacy or gameplay
h2 - the forums, such as General Assembly
H3 - The thread subject.

I've given this a shot. Please let me know if I got it right!

It's a thing of beauty. Perfect.

Can the same be done for the "View my posts"? I think that template is launched under search.php

SalusaSecondus wrote:

Cerberion wrote:Well the game side of things is very accessible, so set your mind at rest there. The only caveat to that statement is that the most accessible theme is antiquity.

Good to know.

Cerberion wrote:All of the newer themes have abandoned the table format for RMB posts in favor of divs. Divs look nice but aren't helpful. Still all the time we've got antiquity we should be fine. Perhaps have a link on the site that you can click to switch it to antiquity if that is not the current theme.

Something like [url=antiquity.nationstates.net]Click for screen reader optimized site.[/url]

You could embed it as a 1px graphical link so that the sighted won't see it.

I've made a note to look into this.

Please let us know if we break anything or screw it up. As we don't use screen-readers, its much harder for us to test things.

If you need help with testing, I can ask a former player if he has time / is interested in helping out. I know that he's near blind so he might be working with screen readers too

Cerberion wrote:It's a thing of beauty. Perfect.

Sadly I need to back it out again, as it caused a problem in some older browsers. But I should be able to fix that, and restore the H tags.

Can the same be done for the "View my posts"? I think that template is launched under search.php

Sure!

So, if you can't see the colours on the "warn" tags, is there anything we can do with formatting the type itself -- eg, this sort of thing:

*** W_A_R_N_E_D *** for polyhymnia

... or is that just going to cause more problems for your screen reader?

(Not that you'll need to see warn tags for your good self, of course, but why should you miss out on the fun of seeing some miscreant go down in flames? )

[violet] wrote:

Cerberion wrote:It's a thing of beauty. Perfect.

Sadly I need to back it out again, as it caused a problem in some older browsers. But I should be able to fix that, and restore the H tags.

Can the same be done for the "View my posts"? I think that template is launched under search.php

Sure!

Thanks, and understood on the older browser issue.