Changeling’s Guide to Discord for Screen Reader Users

IMPORTANT

After a break, I have decided to begin maintaining this guide again. Before I start providing regular updates, I need to revise the guide to reflect the changes Discord has made since I started this project in 2019, and to allow for a form factor that will allow me to more easily make edits as updates to discord are released. This second edition will take some time and effort to put together, so please continue to use the existing version in the meantime.

If you find this project valuable, please consider making a donation. The content is free, but producing it takes time and effort. Also, maintaining the website and getting my hands on devices to test for documentation purposes costs money. If you are not in a position to give, I’ve been there. Thank you in advance for your patience and your contributions.

What is This?

This is a page that contains all the links to posts in the “Changeling’s Guide to Discord for Screen Reader Users” series, as well as some answers to some frequently asked questions. if these questions aren’t being asked on a frequent basis, this is me telling you that they should be.

How Do I navigate the Guide?

Each link is set to open in a new tab. You can click the link, read the post, close the tab, and find the link to the next post.

Who Are you? Why Did you Write This?

I am a blind computer user who was first given free run of the Internet after graduating high school in 2006. I quickly discovered the ability of the internet to let one person connect with others, and I embraced anything that gave people more choices for accomplishing this. I was particularly intrigued with Discord’s combination of building community, as well as its knack for creating  topic specific forums within that community (channels), and it worked easily across all platforms. When I first drafted the guide, no other screen reader specific documentation existed, and I decided it should. A few days later, it did.

Can I link to This on my Website or Social media?

Of course. I put the information up so it could be freely available. You can use the short link http://changeling.mx/DiscordGuide for an easier fit within social media character limits.

Do Versions of this Guide for Other Platforms Exist?

I am happy to announce that the version of this guide specific to VoiceOver on iOS is now available. The developers continue to make changes and squash bugs, but the experience is finally stable enough to allow me to endorse the experience. Additionally, the user experiences between iOS and android are similar enough that someone could read the iOS-centric guide and be able to use the Android version.

Changes

The following is a list of changes to the guide to account for changes in functionality, new features, etc.

For the Front Page

  • Added a section to document recent changes.
  • Removed the “How Can I Get Help?” section.
  • Provided a short link in the section permitting the sharing of this guide on other websites.
  • Changed the section names to “Desktop” and “Mobile” to acknowledge multiple platforms.

For Desktop

  • Added a link to JAWS scripts for Discord in information about navigating the UI.
  • Changed the chatting information to include directions for reading messages using HTML navigation and the Discord navigation features.
  • Added information about choosing roles to the section on servers and channels to account for the trend of only showing channels to users who assign themselves certain roles within a server.
  • Added a section to the post about servers and channels explaining how to rearrange servers into the user’s desired order.

MetaChanges

Changed the post permalinks by adding “/discord” to all of them for organizational reasons. Additionally, they are tagged with “/desktop” or “mobile” depending on which guide they belogn to.

Posts in the Series

Specific to Desktop

Specific to Mobile

 

55 Comments

  1. I’m glad you’re doing this. There are too many people that still think discord is inaccessible or hard to use, and its really not that bad. I much prefer it over TeamTalk these days.



  3. with f6 and leaving application mode enabled, you don’t even really need the jaws scripts. also if you didn’t know, or forgot, discord now has drag and drop via the keyboard. more useful for admin but users can use it to arange their server lists.



  5. I’ve not forgot, the’s just this group of people in the world who think that programs lacking JAWS scripts are automatically inaccessible.


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