When I use Discord on Windows I usually use NVDA but most of this will apply to JAWS as well.

Ctrl+k is your bestest friend. Wanna get to a server? ctrl+k to get to it. Want to navigate to a specific channel? Ctrl+k.

the most important elements you'll need to get around are the servers list which is made of links, the DMs list which is also links, and the server channels list which is made of buttons. If you want to open a specific DM and don't/can't ctrl+k to it, you can click the home link, then find the "create server" button, and then navigate by link until you find the friend you wanna pull up.

Maybe you're in a server and you want to move to a different channel but ctrl+k isn't behaving. JAWS+f5 (it might be f6, I can't remember) will open up the buttons dialogue and you can navigate around there to find the right channel within the same server.

Voice chatting? Don't bother with setting a push-to-talk key. Discord doesn't play nice with the command-passthrough built into JAWS and it won't work anyway if Discord isn't the foreground Window. Instead use voice detection. Find the "user settings" button and navigate the settings. This area is kind of a pain and quite messy. Navigate by heading here for best results.

So you have voice activation but sometimes you absolutely don't wanna be heard? Ctrl+shift+m will toggle microphone mute with a handy audio queue. Ctrl+shift+d will toggle deafening, also with a handy audio queue. Doing a call rather than chatting in a voice channel? JAWS (usually) reads the name of the caller but will not move focus to the call window. Fortunately you can hit ctrl+enter to accept or esc to reject. The only way I know to end a call or leave a voice channel is to find the "disconnect" button or close the Discord client.

Want to change your status? The button for that is near the user settings button. Keep in mind that this one expands a menu that is in a different part of the client. Most of the time the screen reader will move focus to it. Sometimes it won't and at those times I usually reopen the client and don't bother trying to find it manually.

How about sending a message? Whatever you do, don't try to manually move to the edit box. JAWS will move you through every. message. in. the. channel before depositing you in the edit box. Just navigate to it by hitting your "e" key. The edit box is a major landmark that will help you get around. If you move down past the edit box then you will find the user list. Sometimes it doesn't let you go past the edit box and I really don't know why. Probably Discord being dumb because the devs couldn't be arsed to follow WCAG 2.1 and a11y from the start.

Aaaaaaanyway, sometimes when I open Discord I literally cannot go anywhere. Moving to a channel or DM with ctrl+k will fix this. Ctrl+k is a very handy command. Honestly it's faster than mousing to a channel. I know firsthand because I used to do that.

Discord is basically a glorified web client. You don't have to deal with any of the other browser crap so it's not as asinine as something like the Outlook or MS Word web clients but it can still be tricky to navigate with a screen reader. The HTML is layed out like this: servers list, search edit box and ctrl+k reminder, server channels/DMs, user status and settings and voice controls, channel/DM messages, message edit box, user list.

Discor has gotten a lot better. If you use a screen reader then you may have already seen a modal pop up asking if they can collect usage data to improve the experience for screen reader users. Going further back, the server names used to be data hashes embedded in an internal URL. Honestly I still need to keep the mobile client near me to do some stuff like add friends, but the core of Discord is accessible with a little practice and the developers deserve credit for that.

Lastly, there are a hell of a lot more keystroke commands but I don't use most of them. You might find them helpful, so here's a page with a whole bunch of them:

https://support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/225977308--Windows-Discord-Hotkeys

join my discord server for blind and vi, we have all the shortcuts listed in channel and existing jaws users can help you as well

$1

Has anyone tried the iOS app lately? Is it any better than a year ago?

Hi there definitely I will join the discord channel, the iOS client is somewhat usable no issues here!! I use discord only to catch up with the jailbreak community at times.