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An update on Accessibility in New Reddit (self.Blind)
submitted by hueylewisandthesnoos
Hi friends,
It's been a while since our last update on accessibility in new Reddit, so we wanted to take a moment to share what we've been up to since then and what we're working on now.
First, however, here's a quick recap of our last post $1:
* We conducted an audit that resulted in 144 pages of improvements that we needed to make.
* Our first area to tackle was *Consumption*. Allowing for navigation and recognition through all elements on our global header, subscription menu, feeds, supporting right rail, lightbox and conversation.
* While doing that, assess feedback that was coming in and be agile to iterate on needs.
We learned a ton from your feedback on our first post, especially what we need to do on the tech side to truly make a great experience. Some of the pieces of feedback around consumption we received were:
* One of the simplest things that is now broken on the new site is the missing labels …
* Reddit still continues to open dialogues… (*I’ll stop it right there; basically, our dialogues/modals sucked*.)
* In the new design, to get to the actual content takes more time than it does in the old
* …. And about 402,845 more pieces of feedback.
**Okay, now for the update.**
We’ve hit what we believe to be a nice place to *really set our baseline*. (Thank you for bearing with us over the past few months.) We’ve enabled navigation throughout all elements within the site, created labels for *nearly* all of our common components (so when we continue to build, they will come prepackaged and won’t break moving forward), modals shouldn’t suck as much anymore (still some kinks), and a stretch goal of bringing in narrative to the labels (once we fix everything else of course).
**What’s next?**
Well, we know we’re going to get a bunch of feedback, so that’s obviously next. But in parallel, we’ll be massaging out our labels and narrative, making sure all modals are ready to be focused on and beginning the charge toward our moderator areas and media.
We encourage everyone to give it a spin now, and please place any and all suggestions/comments/frustrations in the comments section. We’ll have the team check in whenever we get the notification. As for now, I’ll stick around for a bit to answer any pressing items.
Last but not least, as per my usual; for you … $1.
​
*Edit: Link to previous post*
It's been a while since our last update on accessibility in new Reddit, so we wanted to take a moment to share what we've been up to since then and what we're working on now.
First, however, here's a quick recap of our last post $1:
* We conducted an audit that resulted in 144 pages of improvements that we needed to make.
* Our first area to tackle was *Consumption*. Allowing for navigation and recognition through all elements on our global header, subscription menu, feeds, supporting right rail, lightbox and conversation.
* While doing that, assess feedback that was coming in and be agile to iterate on needs.
We learned a ton from your feedback on our first post, especially what we need to do on the tech side to truly make a great experience. Some of the pieces of feedback around consumption we received were:
* One of the simplest things that is now broken on the new site is the missing labels …
* Reddit still continues to open dialogues… (*I’ll stop it right there; basically, our dialogues/modals sucked*.)
* In the new design, to get to the actual content takes more time than it does in the old
* …. And about 402,845 more pieces of feedback.
**Okay, now for the update.**
We’ve hit what we believe to be a nice place to *really set our baseline*. (Thank you for bearing with us over the past few months.) We’ve enabled navigation throughout all elements within the site, created labels for *nearly* all of our common components (so when we continue to build, they will come prepackaged and won’t break moving forward), modals shouldn’t suck as much anymore (still some kinks), and a stretch goal of bringing in narrative to the labels (once we fix everything else of course).
**What’s next?**
Well, we know we’re going to get a bunch of feedback, so that’s obviously next. But in parallel, we’ll be massaging out our labels and narrative, making sure all modals are ready to be focused on and beginning the charge toward our moderator areas and media.
We encourage everyone to give it a spin now, and please place any and all suggestions/comments/frustrations in the comments section. We’ll have the team check in whenever we get the notification. As for now, I’ll stick around for a bit to answer any pressing items.
Last but not least, as per my usual; for you … $1.
​
*Edit: Link to previous post*
Kylexmajus 9 points 4y ago
I don’t spend much time on the website as I’m on a mobile app, however I’ll take some time to poke around and see if I have any suggestions. What I really wanted to say is thank you for taking the time to consider our needs, suggestions and feedback.
hueylewisandthesnoos [OP] 5 points 4y ago
Our pleasure. Please don't hesitate to provide any feedback on the mobile app as well! We're looking towards conducting the same audit there, soon-ish.
AllHarlowsEve 4 points 4y ago
My only real issue on the iPhone app is with weird labels and the add comment button being a PitA to get sometimes.
For example, the "post new thread" button is labeled as "edit 20" and there's "overflow" instead of "more" or something similar. It's not a huge deal, but it's less intuitive.
With the "add comment" button, I can only seem to get it perfectly at the bottom of a thread. Sometimes, I can get it if I three finger scroll up and up until the bottom of the OP is there, but not always.
As I'm typing, I remember more, so here's a few others.
- The button to open the main menu doesn't exist with a screen reader. It's not even just a blank button. I have to turn off Voiceover to get it open.
- The night theme refuses to stay on, but it'll stay on if it's night time. If I turn on dark mode, swap to another app, even if it's only for a second, it swaps back to black on white not white on black
- Posts with links only, like in /r/NotTheOnion, tend to be a PitA to open the article with a screen reader
- For some reason, bulletted lists, even with the two enters between them, merge into one line
- Also tapping a post, even if it has only one link, seems to only open the link if it's the first thing in the post. It'd be nice if there was a way to open links properly, especially for subs like /r/JustNoMIL where there's a comment with a ton of links to older posts. I have to hit share, copy link, paste it into safari, then go from there, and then head back into the app, my much preferred app, unless I want to hit "view in app" on every post.
- Also is three finger swipe right supposed to swap threads? It seems to trigger on 4 fingers as well, so when I'm sending posts from, say, an /r/askreddit thread, sometimes I come back to the app and I'm in a completely different thread, in a different sub.
- Also, being able to share images from the app would be nice. If I could just tap, hold, hit share, and share images into my OCR of choice, that'd make things much easier.
- Also pls to have an unread tag on notifications. I hate when I have 20 notifications, scroll through tapping them, and can't find the last one so I end up just reopening all the notifs and still can't find it, then just hit mark everything as read.
For example, the "post new thread" button is labeled as "edit 20" and there's "overflow" instead of "more" or something similar. It's not a huge deal, but it's less intuitive.
With the "add comment" button, I can only seem to get it perfectly at the bottom of a thread. Sometimes, I can get it if I three finger scroll up and up until the bottom of the OP is there, but not always.
As I'm typing, I remember more, so here's a few others.
- The button to open the main menu doesn't exist with a screen reader. It's not even just a blank button. I have to turn off Voiceover to get it open.
- The night theme refuses to stay on, but it'll stay on if it's night time. If I turn on dark mode, swap to another app, even if it's only for a second, it swaps back to black on white not white on black
- Posts with links only, like in /r/NotTheOnion, tend to be a PitA to open the article with a screen reader
- For some reason, bulletted lists, even with the two enters between them, merge into one line
- Also tapping a post, even if it has only one link, seems to only open the link if it's the first thing in the post. It'd be nice if there was a way to open links properly, especially for subs like /r/JustNoMIL where there's a comment with a ton of links to older posts. I have to hit share, copy link, paste it into safari, then go from there, and then head back into the app, my much preferred app, unless I want to hit "view in app" on every post.
- Also is three finger swipe right supposed to swap threads? It seems to trigger on 4 fingers as well, so when I'm sending posts from, say, an /r/askreddit thread, sometimes I come back to the app and I'm in a completely different thread, in a different sub.
- Also, being able to share images from the app would be nice. If I could just tap, hold, hit share, and share images into my OCR of choice, that'd make things much easier.
- Also pls to have an unread tag on notifications. I hate when I have 20 notifications, scroll through tapping them, and can't find the last one so I end up just reopening all the notifs and still can't find it, then just hit mark everything as read.
impablomations 7 points 4y ago
I've gone ahead and stickied the post. Thanks for the work you're doing, I know a lot of our subscribers appreciate it.
hueylewisandthesnoos [OP] 2 points 4y ago
Thank you, friend!
SLJ7 4 points 4y ago
I deleted a previous comment of mine after I went and edumucated myself on the keyboard shortcuts on Reddit, so here are my thoughts:
First, I really like what you're doing here. I switched to the new Reddit a while ago and found it to be better than the old layout. Obviously that's what the developers hoped for with the redesign, but it's always great to see accessibility work provide the same outcome for a blind person. I like the toggle buttons that actually tell me I've upvoted something, the comment level labels, the headings for different parts of navigation, and so much more. Now that I understand how it works, I really enjoy being able to j and k through comments.
I have two suggestions regarding comments:
* Whenever I press j and k, my screen reader, NVDA, reads the upvote and downvote buttons before the comment. Other than that, everything announces perfectly. Can this be excluded without compromising navigation or usability in another way?
* I would love to have the option of navigating by comment level, e.g. pressing 1 for top level comments, to for comments underneath it. This is similar to the way heading levels work in most apps.
Thoughts?
First, I really like what you're doing here. I switched to the new Reddit a while ago and found it to be better than the old layout. Obviously that's what the developers hoped for with the redesign, but it's always great to see accessibility work provide the same outcome for a blind person. I like the toggle buttons that actually tell me I've upvoted something, the comment level labels, the headings for different parts of navigation, and so much more. Now that I understand how it works, I really enjoy being able to j and k through comments.
I have two suggestions regarding comments:
* Whenever I press j and k, my screen reader, NVDA, reads the upvote and downvote buttons before the comment. Other than that, everything announces perfectly. Can this be excluded without compromising navigation or usability in another way?
* I would love to have the option of navigating by comment level, e.g. pressing 1 for top level comments, to for comments underneath it. This is similar to the way heading levels work in most apps.
Thoughts?
SLJ7 3 points 4y ago
I know this is a small thing, but whenever I look at a new community I always want to see the rules and details before I post. As of now, there's no easy way to jump directly to that area. The best I've got is to jump to the very bottom of the page and then navigate backward to the previous button, which will evitably be subscribe or unsubscribe. Could the "Community Details" section be a heading, a landmark, or both? These small things can help a lot with navigation.
LordLuceus 1 points 4y ago
I second this. Not to mention, after I've done all that backward navigation to get to the sidebar and am happily reading through the rules, sometimes the page will scroll me back up to a random place, and I have to start the whole thing over again. Very annoying.
Terry_Pie 3 points 4y ago
Regarding the Reddit app for Android: a font size setting, please. (Unless there already is one that I can't find).
The app is not affected by my phone's font size setting, and without such a setting independtly within the app fonts are teeny tiny.
The app is not affected by my phone's font size setting, and without such a setting independtly within the app fonts are teeny tiny.
jr2thdoc 3 points 4y ago
Thanks for the effort!
hueylewisandthesnoos [OP] 1 points 4y ago
Plenty more effort to give!
Laser_Lens_4 2 points 4y ago
THe Android app still has unlabeled buttons.
modulus 2 points 4y ago
Random Reddit complain (may as well put it here since it's so weird).
Sometimes Reddit comments appear to the screen reader (Firefox ESR, NVDA) as having no spaces in between the words. Needless to say this makes it pretty hard to read them. Absolutely no clue what's causing it...
Sometimes Reddit comments appear to the screen reader (Firefox ESR, NVDA) as having no spaces in between the words. Needless to say this makes it pretty hard to read them. Absolutely no clue what's causing it...
jage9 1 points 4y ago
At least in NVDA/Firefox, if you maximize the window, it seems to fix this.
modulus 1 points 4y ago
Does it? That's pretty wild, and interesting. I'll try it.
If it works it at least is a useful workaround.
If it works it at least is a useful workaround.
hueylewisandthesnoos [OP] 1 points 4y ago
Thanks for the heads up, u/modulus! We'll take a look and hopefully get this shored up fairly soon.
fastfinge 2 points 4y ago
As another poster said, I'm so close to making new reddit my default experience. The stuff that bothers me now isn't even access related. The biggest thing is that when I press enter on a post, it doesn't open a new tab. I keep multiple posts I want to read/comment on/deal with later open in different tabs. Now new reddit insists on loading it in the same tab as the homepage, and that's a showstopper for me.
rkingett 2 points 4y ago
I have it set up that way in the old reddit but for now, if you hit CTRL, enter, it will open in a new tab. Shift enter opens it up in a new window.
fastfinge 1 points 4y ago
Thanks! I didn't realize that would still work even though the new site uses JavaScript for everything.
rkingett 2 points 4y ago
How does the new reddit work with jabascript disabled completely? I sometimes disable javascript when I want to read a lot of stuff quickly and don't need to watch video or fill out forms and such.
fastfinge 1 points 4y ago
Haven't tried. But I doubt it works at all; everything in new Reddit is done via JavaScript; it's more of a web app (like gmail) than a website (like old reddit).
flameborn 2 points 4y ago
Thank you very much. The new Reddit is on the verge of becoming my choice over the old one, which certainly shows that the improvements really made a difference. I'm especially glad about the headings, so posts can be navigated to, we get more feedback about replies and their levels as well.
A quite serious issue still is lag, especially when opening the front page. See the reported issue at https://www.reddit.com/r/redesign/comments/938hdg/accessibility_bug_loading_redesigned_reddit_on_a/
A quite serious issue still is lag, especially when opening the front page. See the reported issue at https://www.reddit.com/r/redesign/comments/938hdg/accessibility_bug_loading_redesigned_reddit_on_a/
hueylewisandthesnoos [OP] 1 points 4y ago
Yes! Quite the issue, one we experienced heavily during testing and are still working on. Really appreciate the heads up on the post-feedback, unfortunately some fall through the cracks and I'll make sure the team logs that one in.
Extremely happy to hear that we're getting close, just keep poking on in, check the progress and continue to give any and all feedback if possible.
Extremely happy to hear that we're getting close, just keep poking on in, check the progress and continue to give any and all feedback if possible.
rkingett 2 points 4y ago
Lag is still a huge issue for me. I'm glad the old reddit exists for now, if I want speedy navigation, but the improvements are great! One issue though, in settings, I have it set up so pages and links open in new tabs in the old reddit. In the new reddit this does not work by itself.
bondolo 2 points 4y ago
Thank you for the update!
hueylewisandthesnoos [OP] 1 points 4y ago
Thank you u/bondolo! It's coming together, as usual it takes time ... but it's something we do care about and will continue to push forward with all the feedback, audits and testing. So hopefully everyone will join us on the journey.
[deleted] 1 points 4y ago
[deleted]
[deleted] 2 points 4y ago
Really?, thats a shame.
​
What kind of device so you use to access Reddit ?
​
What kind of device so you use to access Reddit ?
[deleted] 1 points 4y ago
[removed]
ExpertGamerJohn 1 points 4y ago
How do blind people use reddit
enzwificritic 1 points 4y ago
some feedback:
it is hard for me to look at my subscribed subreddits. when i go to reddits home page it takes lots of time to even search for my subscribed subreddits. also it is hard for me to unsubscribe or subscribe as this button is at the very bottom of the thread so it takes me so long to find.
i hope you consider my feedback.
thanks.
it is hard for me to look at my subscribed subreddits. when i go to reddits home page it takes lots of time to even search for my subscribed subreddits. also it is hard for me to unsubscribe or subscribe as this button is at the very bottom of the thread so it takes me so long to find.
i hope you consider my feedback.
thanks.
[deleted] 1 points 4y ago
[deleted]
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