Blind and Visually Impaired Community
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I'm making a text-based online fantasy roleplaying game that's accessible to users of screen readers. Here's the third part of my Development Diary. (enfors.medium.com)
submitted by Enfors
Enfors [OP] 1 points 1y ago
I have a question. I'm fully sighted myself, and I have no experience of using screen readers. In the coming entries in this Development Diary, I think I'll start including some of the Python code I'm writing in the articles.
But I understand that not everybody is interested in the code. And those of us who are sighted,can very easily just skip past that part of an article. But what's it like when using a screen reader? I can't imagine hearing Python code read out loud sounds very interesting. One approach I've been considering is instead of including the code as text in the articles, I could have it as images instead, with a (hopefully non-condecending) alt text that summarises the code. But I'm not sure what's best - I know there are very competent Python coders among the visually impaired, and they might want to be able to read the code with screen readers, I don't know.
I'd really appreciate your input on this. I want to make my articles as accessible as possible.
But I understand that not everybody is interested in the code. And those of us who are sighted,can very easily just skip past that part of an article. But what's it like when using a screen reader? I can't imagine hearing Python code read out loud sounds very interesting. One approach I've been considering is instead of including the code as text in the articles, I could have it as images instead, with a (hopefully non-condecending) alt text that summarises the code. But I'm not sure what's best - I know there are very competent Python coders among the visually impaired, and they might want to be able to read the code with screen readers, I don't know.
I'd really appreciate your input on this. I want to make my articles as accessible as possible.
zersiax 2 points 1y ago
I'd say it depends on the amount of code. Pages and pages of code samples aren't fun for anyone, and if it's just brief samples they should be easy enough to scroll past as a screenreader user as well.
If you're worried about this you can also just make the code samples collapsable, provided you make sure collapsing, expanding and checking collapsed state is accessible of course. aria-expanded might help there a liltle.
If you're worried about this you can also just make the code samples collapsable, provided you make sure collapsing, expanding and checking collapsed state is accessible of course. aria-expanded might help there a liltle.
Enfors [OP] 1 points 1y ago
Thank you, I appreciate your input. My idea was to have code snippets that are, perhaps, 10 to 20 lines or so long. I'm writing the articles on medium.com, so I'm guessing that it's not possible to make collapsing sections there, but it's a great idea otherwise.
zersiax 2 points 1y ago
Medium doesn't have the best accessibility track record so yeah, would not surprise me if that isn't a thing you can do. 10-20 lines should be ok though, particularly if you break up the post into headings like you have been.
Enfors [OP] 1 points 1y ago
I'm sorry to hear that Medium is bad at accessibility - I suspect most websites are like that. But thank you, I will include code in the articles in the future, but make sure it's not too many lines at a time.
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