Attention, blind Akkoma users! I will be writing to the developer with my concerns about a few problems with accessibility on this platform. Most should be easy to resolve. Please let me know if you find any more, and also state what browser and screen reader you are using. Note: This is in reference to the site itself, not to your client of choice. I will post about that separately. For the record, I use NVDA with Firefox.

1. Many buttons are unlabelled and simply say "button". This is true on the main page as well as when viewing posts and tabs in profiles. Most work once pressed. They just need to be labelled.
2. Searching for people, tags, groups, and posts is inaccessible. I can enter the edit field and write my text, but then, there are two unlabelled buttons next to that. The first simply takes me back to the edit field. The second does nothing. I am assuming this is a submit button that doesn't work via the keyboard.
3. It is impossible to view followers, as well as those whom I follow. I can see the numbers of each but not the people and groups themselves.
4. I cannot read my own profile without editing it. There appears to be no link where I can simply view it, either as myself or anonymously. If I go to my page and am not logged in, however, I can view it. I can also easily edit it when logged in.
5. The page renders very differently in Chrome than in Firefox. In Chrome, I can't see anything but my notifications, so I can't get to my page or the other timelines.

#accessibility #Akkoma #blind #Blob.cat #Chrome #Fediverse #fediverse #Firefox #JAWS #NVDA #html #ScreenReaders #SemanticHtml #Supermium #Windows

Do capital letters matter in #AltText?
#a11y #ScreenReader #ScreenReaders

Tonight, because of the problems with TweeseCake and Blob.cat compatibility, I was reminded of TWBlue. Normally, I don't use it, because I can't edit posts. But other than that one feature, I love it! It even has a few features that TweeseCake doesn't, including the ability to view followers, those whom you follow, and blocked users. It even allows searching within posts and for people! It also allows me to view favourites, which TweeseCake has only partially implemented. There, they disappear, but here, they remain visible. I was also wrong when I said that I can't post paragraphs. It's just that, instead of hitting return as I normally would (and as in TweeseCake, for those curious), I have to hit shift+return. Interestingly, I found that I can edit my Friendica profile perfectly, excluding Friendica-only features such as keywords. Remember, both of these clients are made to work with Mastodon, and the only reason they can work with other platforms is their compatibility with it. Anyway, when I try to edit my profile on Blob.cat, I can't. After I choose "Edit", nothing happens. But the most vexing thing is that TWBlue doesn't include an editing feature for posts! If anyone here works with and/or for them, can you plese either suggest this or strongly consider implementing it? It would make life so much easier and would complement the other features very well.

#accessibility #blind #Blob.cat #clients #Friendica #NVDA #ScreenReaders #TweeseCake #TWBlue #Windows

I am unable to view or even edit my sent posts in TweeseCake with Blob.cat! I have no idea why. Maybe, it's different enough from Mastodon (the actual network that TweeseCake is meant to work with) that it won't allow me to do it. Sometimes, I honestly have half a mind to just give up all social networking accept Dreamwidth, because it's the only place that is completely accessible. I don't have to beg developers to make things screenreader-friendly, or hope it will work with this client or that website because I can't do x on the main one, or that y feature that worked on one site will be accessible on the next one. It just works. Say what you like about Facebook, but the Basic Mobile site (not app) worked. I hardly had any problem with it. Then, they closed it, and I left because their main site is a nightmare to work with. Now, I'm in the Fediverse, feeling as if I'm using the main Facebook site all over again!

I don't blame the administrators of friendica.world or blob.cat. It's not their fault. They're just working with what they have. Both are wonderful human beings who have been very kind to me. It's not even the fault of the developers of both sites. It makes sense, when you're a small business or a single developer, not to know about things such as accessibility. I just wish more people would learn and/or write things in semantic html or offer some kind of text-only or basic version of their site. I know that Deque University and Geeks4Geeks teach accessibility and teach html with accessibility included, respectively, but I guess other sites and books don't. As for TweeseCake, this is an excellent client for the blind that works well with Friendica and probably even better with Mastodon. But again, it's by a single developer. While changes are coming, people do have lives and other committments, and one person can't be expected to work as quickly as a huge company.

By the way, my Dreamwidth account is here. I must update it slightly, as I have some new entries to post for the month.

dandylover1.dreamwidth.org

Yay! I'm on Blob.cat! I am happy to note that almost all of it is accessible, minus one or two minor issues. I have a feeling this is not an instance problem, but an Akkoma problem. Even as a non-programmer, I am also fairly certain that this can be fixed easily. No one needs to rewrite the entire front end, as with Friendica. Basically, in the Profile and Settings, and on the main page, there are some buttons and check boxes that are not labelled properly. The check boxes under Settings, for example, just say "check", without stating if they are checked or unchecked. However, when they are unchecked, there is something labelled simply "button" that appears. There are other buttons for things such as post visibility default, but while they are labelled i.e. "Unlisted", "Public", etc. there is no way to tell which button is checked. In the profile, the Bio section appears blank, even though I filled it out during registration and can read it when I go to my profile without trying to edit it. Finally, on the main page, there are two things labelled simply "button". I think they have something to do with emojis. But that's really it! Everything else is accessible with NVDA, and I love the feature set! I really hope these tiny things can be worked on, because it would make everything truly perfect!

By the way, here is my profile page. I haven't written anything yet, as I was only approved recently.

blob.cat/dandylover1

#accessibility #Akkoma #blind #Blob.Cat #Fediverse #fediverse #Friendica #html #NVDA #ScreenReaders #SemanticHtml #WCAG

Question for people who use #screenReaders: how annoying is it for you when people spell words out for dramatic emphasis by either dashes or spaces? For example:
d-a-s-h-e-s
s p a c e s

Is it a pain all the time, or is there a limit to how long the word(s) are when it becomes intolerable and a serious inconvenience for you to have to read?

For that matter, how bad is alternating case? LiKe ThIs?

I have looked everywhere, but I can't find this post from 11 February! It isn't showing up in my Sent timeline. So if it is on my profile, and/or if you have seen it, I apologise.

I am not closing my account here, but I need to try something other than Friendica, due to accessibility issues. I am considering Akkoma, but am open to other networks if they are compatible with Mastodon.

I am seeking an instance with the following specifications.

Accessible interface (I use a screen reader called NVDA). If it uses Semantic html and isn't cluttered, that's a great start. I would prefer it to be compatible with Mastodon so that I could also use TweeseCake as a client. I need to easily be able to access things such as notifications, follow requests, my own posts, to be able to search for tags, people, my posts etc.

Posting limit of 5,000 characters or more (more preferred.

Ability to pin, unpin, edit, and delete posts.

Ability to filter content, so that I don't see certain words or phrases. (This doesn't work with TweeseCake, so it's not as important as the rest, unless the site is so accessible that I can use it often.)

Ability to select between seeing all posts of someone or only some, and to choose whether to let someone follow me without my seeing his posts or to follow him completely. (Friend versus Subscriber on Friendica).

Extensive profile with keywords. (Keywords may be a Friendica feature, so can be skipped.)

Most people write in English and are not politically, technologically, or gaming obsessed. No radicals of any pursuasion. (the English bit is just to help me find friends on my particular instance.)

Free speech (nothing illegal or homophobic). I personally avoid obscenities.)

If such an instance exists, please tell me. I found https://akkoma.fediverse.observer/list[7] but that's just a list with no real information about each instance. I would have to go through over 400 of them, choose the ones from the UK, Canada, and America (they're the most likely to have English instances), then go through those to see if they meet my requirements, but that's ridiculous.

I am not a programmer, so please don't suggest I start my own instance or join a network that is not set up with a webpage and/or to accept a client, as I know nothing about these things other than that they run on Linux and I'm a Windows user. I just want something that works. Also, if there are any demonstration instances, please let me know. I heard of one where accounts only lasted five days, but it seems to be gone.

Please pass this on to anyone who writes websites, and/or read it if you are one and are unaware of how to make your site more accessible to screen readers. This is an excellent place to start.

allyant.com/5-screen-reader-te…

#Accessibility question for people who use #screenreaders:

I have a website with a gallery of pixel art images. Each image features alt text describing it.

However, I would also like to show additional information, namely the theme prompt the image was made for, upon hovering over the image.

Can I have both alt text and hover text or does it end up messing up something?

I looked it up on the web and found contradictory information.

I tried to post this to the Friendica support forum, but it kept timing out when I entered my information. I am now attempting to subscribe to their e-mail list. However, I thought I would write this here so that those who know coding, etc. might be able to offer a solution, or at least, to pass this on to the developers.

I joined Friendica in October of 2024, when Facebook decided to shut down their Basic Mobile site (not app). I am totally blind, and their main page is a nightmare to use with a screen readre (NVDA in my case). I chose Friendica because of the huge character limit, the ability to edit and delete posts, local posting, extensive profiles with keywords, and the ability to connect with all sorts of accounts in the Fediverse. For the most part, I am enjoying my time here. However, I am noticing a lot of inaccessibility on the Friendica page. I am not a programmer, but I'm guessing this is at the core of the software and is not due to the instance I'm using (friendica.world). I am also guessing that the page is not written in HTML5 and does not follow WCAG guidelines, though I may be wrong about that. If not, I strongly urge the developers to review them and implement them if possible. If so, perhaps, some changes can still be made that would make this a more screen reader-friendly site. Note that I tried this with Firefox and Supermium (a direct fork of Chrome).

Mostly, I use TweeseCake to access the site, but there are some things I can't do with that client. All of the following refer to the site itself.

1. There is a list of links at the top of the page that acts like a menu. This causes many problems while trying to perform basic tasks, particularly editing posts and handling notifications. I can't always activate said links/menu either.

1A. I can't stress how frustrating editing posts is. It sometimes takes over ten minutes. The "edit" option is a link/menu, and it can only be found via another menu. Once I finally find and activate it, I hear the sound indicating that I have entered focus Mode. Usually, this means that I am in an edit box and can type. However, in this case, I am taken back to the main page, as if I never entered the option to edit my post. Using e to try to find an edit box doesn't help, as it just sends me to the replies to different comments. So I am forced to find the post, and start all over again. The only way I can do this successfully is to try to tab through the links/menu at the top of the page (when it works), then through other posts, until, finally, I am placed in an edit box where I can type.

1B. When I go to the Notifications" link, I have to tab to "Mark all System Notifications as Seen". This isn't even a regular link, as I can't copy and paste the text from it. Once I tab to and out of that, I can then read my notifications. But here is what I have to do if I want to see follow requests.
1. Try to get the notifications link to work, then click on it.
2. Tab to marking notifications.
3. Perform a search for the word follow.
4. Click on the link of the notification that someone wants to follow me. I open this in a new window, to try to keep the original one available.
5. Make my choice as to whether to approve that notification, then close that window.
6. Return to the main window. Only now, I am not where I left off. Instead, I am placed back at the beginning of the page and the Notifications menu is not open.
7. Repeat steps 1 through 3.
Ideally, I should be able to go to a normal notifications link, perform steps 3 through 5, then return back to the link, and perform steps 3 through 5 again, as many times as necessary, without having to repeat 1 through 3.

1. I can't just go to the site and enter an edit box to post. I must go through a menu to find the link to do so. Yet there is an edit box for searching for content, tags, etc.
2. Some pinned posts don't always read properly. I can see my name, when I posted, that it's pinned, a public message, tags (if applicable), buttons for resharing, etc., and the number of comments. But I cannot simply read the post itself. ""Comments" is also a button, not a link. Even when I expand them, I still can't see my post, and finding the button again to close them takes a lot of time, as posts also have their own buttons. Note that unpinned posts are read properly.
3. While the process of editing my profile is completely accessible, finding the edit option might be slightly confusing for new users, as it requires entering yet another link/menu, this time with the user name as the title..
4. If I go to a profile of someone not on Friendica (usually Mastodon) and wish to reply to a post, after I enter my credentials, it takes me back to my profile, not to the relevant post. It only worked once.
5. The Friendica app for Windows is basically the site itself. I don't understand this at all.

If you want to see a truly accessible site, try this link. I don't work for them, though I do have an account there.

dreamwidth.org

Please, if any changes can be made, I urge you to do so. The site is otherwise a pleasure to use, but my frustration at not being able to easily perform such basic tasks is increasing.

I have talked about accessibility a lot here. But now, it's my turn to ask some questions! I fully admit to being guilty of not capitalising the first letter of each word when writing tags, unless said words are usually capitalised. As a screen reader user, I do realise this can lead to confusion. But are searches on Friendica and elsewhere in the Fediverse case sensitive? If I write goodwriting will it show up in the same listings as GoodWriting? If not, which should I follow, and what about single words, such as writing, which screen readers say correctly? Should I capitalise those (or not) for consistancy?

Early in 2024, I bought a Galaxy A15 because it was among the smallest phones I could find (which isnt saying much, as it's still unnecessarily large), has a headphone jack, good battery life, was extremely affordable on Ebay, and would be updated for at least five years. At that time, I had only used Android for a few months and liked it. I had no idea of the rift between Google and Samsung. Even if I had, I needed the headphone jack, and I wasn't about to pay hundreds of dollars for a phone, unless it was small and had a built-in keyboard. Today, I read this. It is concerning, even for those of us who don't normally use artificial intelligence and who don't rely on our phones for everything. It's also why I like systems such as Windows, where features don't depend on which device you use or who manufactured it. Plus, once you have the .exe or .zip file for a program, the odds are it will continue to work on your computer, unless ou update it. No one can remove it from your machine, and you can use older versions of the operating system for years without any problems.

Regardless, I don't like how accessibility is basically being used by Google and Samsung as a marketing tool, with no one caring about real results. Who's to say that this won't continue, and that truly important updates won't make it to older or cheaper phones?

accessibleandroid.com/samsung-…