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Orrin · 10-27-2008, 03:28 PM

I believe it's possible to improve the interface for sighted players with a custom client while still retaining accessibility features. I guess it all depends on the technology used and the design of the client.

I know that in Flex for example (which uses), a lot of the display components should be accessible using a screen reader, and Adobe apparently have some available too. I have no idea how good the support is, but after reading your post I will definitely enable accessibility features for the next FMud release and would be happy to get any feedback about it.

We also had some blind players stop by Maiden Desmodus during our play test and the feedback we got was positive. Ironically it was to improve accessibility for sighted players that we decided to move away from any kind of ascii art or formatting that relied on fixed width fonts, but this was also welcomed by the blind players.

There are other factors to consider when deciding whether to go with a proprietary client, and I am not sure that I would want to lose compatibility with established MUD clients, but accessibility for visually impaired players is certainly a concern.

10-27-2008, 03:28 PM	#2
Orrin Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Name: Matt Posts: 141	Re: Going Graphical I believe it's possible to improve the interface for sighted players with a custom client while still retaining accessibility features. I guess it all depends on the technology used and the design of the client. I know that in Flex for example (which uses), a lot of the display components should be accessible using a screen reader, and Adobe apparently have some available too. I have no idea how good the support is, but after reading your post I will definitely enable accessibility features for the next FMud release and would be happy to get any feedback about it. We also had some blind players stop by Maiden Desmodus during our play test and the feedback we got was positive. Ironically it was to improve accessibility for sighted players that we decided to move away from any kind of ascii art or formatting that relied on fixed width fonts, but this was also welcomed by the blind players. There are other factors to consider when deciding whether to go with a proprietary client, and I am not sure that I would want to lose compatibility with established MUD clients, but accessibility for visually impaired players is certainly a concern.