Accessibility for the blind

[montalvonet]

The chess board must be accessible for us, here some suggestions for your siteand how do we expect to handle it with the keyboard only.

1. Before anything, a text must be specified in the "alt" element in the HTML language.
2. The screen readers we use, base the reading on the text that this label contains.
3. Navigation should be with the keyboard completely, never with the mouse.
4. Avoid using frames.
5. The cursor arrows for the chessboard and the key tab for the website are our perfect friends.
6. Every time the focus changes to an input or text box, there should be a warning or label telling us what that data entry is about.
7. If you move down a square on the chess board, you should only read the square that we are going to and the piece that exists in that square. In the same way, if we move to the right, left or up. Our screen readers are, NVDA, JAWS, Windows Narrator.

[kraktus]

Lichess has a blind mode which allow users to read the board and play games, from your feedback I'm not sure if you have enabled it. Press tab then enter on the home page to toggle it.

[montalvonet]

of course we have tried that button called accessibility, but in truth it does not work at all, as we have published, the chess board is not readable and when we try to solve problems and exercises it is not readable either. We have published on this site because they let us know when we sent the request to the contact email contact@lichess.orgof course we have finished said button called accessibility, but in truth it does not work at all, as we have published, the chess board is not read and when we try to solve problems and exercises it is not read either. We have published on this site because they let us know when we sent the request to the contact email contact@lichess.org

[montalvonet]

of course we have tried that button called accessibility, but in truth it does not work at all, as we have published, the chess board is not readable and when we try to solve problems and exercises it is not readable either. We have published on this site because they let us know when we sent the request to the contact email contact@lichess.org

[TBestLittleHelper]

I went and tried it out. From my (short) experience of 1 game with the computer, the biggest hurdle is how too look at the board. To narrate the board, you are supposed to enter commands into the 'Your move' input box.

Like "s: Read pieces on a rank or file. Example: s a, s 1. "

This is not very useful, since I don't think this is how most players (whether visually impaired or not) look at the board. We don't do it by scanning one rank or file at a time. I think, it would help if, while the 'Your move' input has focus, the arrow key's allowed a player to move (scan) from square to square getting it read out load at the player's desired pace. This would address point 5 and 7 of the this issue.

[ornicar]

Many blind players are playing on Lichess and have been doing so for years. The current accessible board is known to work well with most screen readers.

[kaiba78987]

I'm also a blind player. I play on Lichess since last year and I found many enhancements for blind mode in this time. I really appreciate the effort.

However, I also found somethings that could be improved or even are completely not accessible. I give some suggestions:

• Translations: It seems that blind mode uses English when playing a game. Most of messages are not translated to the language that the rest of the page uses. It's not a problem for me, but some colleagues find it annoying or difficult.
• Practice: The box to insert commands and movements is shown, but it does not accept any move. I think it should be easy to make it work as it does in games.
• Training: Blind mode doesn't allow to solve tactical exercises.
• Editor: It would be great if the board editor could be accessible.
• Analysis board: I know it's partially accessible, but someone told me that it has more functions that I didn't know because they are not included when using blind mode. Editing comments, annotations and so on would be fantastic.

About the discusion on the input method, I feel confortable with the current method for playing games, but I think editing board and games, solving tactical exercises, etc. would be easier if we could explore the board through the focus. Using commands is often slower and time runs out. I lost many games because I didn't have time enough to check the position of every pawn, while I could have won just checking a square. I know it's harder, but I think it would be a great improvement.

Thanks for your attention.

[montalvonet]

Of course, we have tested all these reports by enabling the "blind mode" button. Here is a more specific list of accessibility problems:

1. If there is a capture of the White pieces, Knight takes e4, and Black's response is the same, Knight takes e4, then the system does not verbalize the second capture, it only emits the capture sound but does not announce the text .
2. I want to explore a game, which has previously played but when I enter my profile it only shows me the last one.
3. When you issue the "L" command to find out who has to move, the text should indicate "White or Black" as well.
4. There must be a command for the system to verbalize the piece that exists in a particular square, currently there are the commands "p" and "s" which works, but some time is wasted when listening to all the pieces in the given range. .
5. In the computer textual analysis of a game, you must specify the valuation.
6. In the textual analysis of the computer, it should show the recommendation for variants only in cases of "error", "blunder" or "inaccuracy".
7. In the opening explorer the commands to move the pieces do not work.
8. When a user has closed their browser by mistake, when trying to restart the game, the link that appears has a strange text and is confusing to read.
9. When creating a game we cannot select the color of the pieces.

[kaiba78987]

@montalvonet All your feedback is very interesting. I agree. Some comments about them:

1 - This happens because ARIA live regions are announced just when the content changes. In this case, the content is the same, so user agents don't announce it. Maybe including the info you mention in the point 3 into the movement solves the problem. 4 - This would be fantastic! 9 - Can't you? It depends on the type of game, but it is possible when you play against the computer or a friend. However, we cannot select the ELO range of our opponents. I think this is easy to implement.

[lucad1971]

many problems have been solved but, but some remains: in analysis board, in blind mode there is not the fen position and the pgn available, as when blind mode is disabled; it shouldnt be too difficult to implement..