Adding screen reader features/NVDA support for blind users

[Lilypad]

I am legally blind and my friend is blind there is a big community of us on steam but we have to jump through hoops to use the steam interface.

[JERICHO DREAD™]

Hello folks.

I would really like to re-ignite discussion surrounding screen reader support. Steam can be a pain for some to deal with using a screen reader. I have unsuccessfully tried to help a couple people with it myself, but as i have recently lost more vision, it would be nice to have some form of built in functionality or better support for screen readers. This would especially be useful in the big picture mode as well as future updates..

Currently, consoles have a more user-friendly setup.

At the moment, some folks need to log in using a method with a shortcut, and while it's nice the option is there, I think Valve can do much better. There are a growing number of blind or visually impaired gamers using Steam since there is a slowly growing number of accessible games.

I will be spreading this thread to others in hopes of bringing this to light once again...

Take care and game on!

[JERICHO DREAD™]

引用自 zql.silva：

I've been tried using Steam for Windows but it's not possible with NVDA. Steam
shows a text not recognized. What would I do?

Steams new big picture mode is... MOSTLY usable with NVDA. If you can see to turn it on in the top right corner of the steam client, go ahead and try that. If not, you may need sighted assistance to get it going. If you wish for it to boot in big picture automatically, someone will need to enable it in the steam settings BEFORE entering big picture. In this mode, you can use a controller OR your keyboard/mouse to navigate the menus. Hitting your NVDA key + SPACE will take you in and out of the two modes. In most cases, you'll want to exit the read mode with all the extra commands NVDA uses, but in some cases, NVDA will not read text and you may need to once again use the NVDA key and space to enable the mode to read these areas.

Sorry i'm not much help, hopefully someone here can be more use, but if you still need help or have questions, please comment back!

[lightwo]

Have you tried Small Mode? Since it's basically just a categorised list, I'd imagine it may work better, unless even in that case nothing's readable with a screen reader.

Warning, though; future versions of Steam will overhaul Small Mode as well, which means that it may work differently or not work at all compared to the present.

Also, I have no idea if command-line interfaces are usable with screen readers, but there exists SteamCMD, a fully command-line but user-unfriendly version of Steam, and some third-party unified game launchers that could work better than the full Steam client.

[JERICHO DREAD™]

引用自 lightwo：

Have you tried Small Mode? Since it's basically just a categorised list, I'd imagine it may work better, unless even in that case nothing's readable with a screen reader.

Warning, though; future versions of Steam will overhaul Small Mode as well, which means that it may work differently or not work at all compared to the present.

Also, I have no idea if command-line interfaces are usable with screen readers, but there exists SteamCMD, a fully command-line but user-unfriendly version of Steam, and some third-party unified game launchers that could work better than the full Steam client.

Wow, never heard of the command line version... if by small mode you are referring to the regular steam UI, yeah... it's a bit of a pain for sure.

Screen readers can indeed read command line thankfully, in which case, that might work! Curious about it myself and may look into it when I have the time.

[JERICHO DREAD™]

I would also like to add that upon some testing, I couldn't get NVDA to read forum thread names in Big Picture for either mode... though perhaps there is something I am missing, that is possible.