Mudder
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#1 id:37763 Posted Nov 18, 2009, 4:41 pm
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I don't know much about screen readers but is there anything a MUD needs to do or should do to make these work well?
On a side note, I've heard about other things such as MXP, Pueblo, VT100(?), etc. Have any of these become standard expectations of MUDs these days?
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......................... A wise man once said:Never underestimate a newbie coder and the sheer amount of spare time they may accumulate.
RaM Fire Development Team. ROM from C to C++
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David Haley
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#2 id:37764 Posted Nov 18, 2009, 5:00 pm
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Mudder said:I don't know much about screen readers but is there anything a MUD needs to do or should do to make these work well?
You want to avoid fancy graphical display (obviously) and playing games with moving the cursor around. Output is easiest to deal with when using a screen reader when it is basically linear. Things like displaying a map over and over again can be annoying because it fills up the buffer they're scrolling through with the reader.
This came up the other day at Gammon's forums, from a user who actually uses a screen reader. (Trying to do things with your eyes closed and a screen reader is a very sobering experience, by the way.)
Mudder said:On a side note, I've heard about other things such as MXP, Pueblo, VT100(?), etc. Have any of these become standard expectations of MUDs these days?
Not as far as I know. (How many MUDs with MXP/Pueblo or fancy VT terminal features do you know of?)
That said, if you're developing a new MUD, you might as well consider something like MXP if anything to see if you can use it in some clever way. It's more useful when it's not added as an afterthought.
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Mudder
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#4 id:37790 Posted Nov 19, 2009, 2:16 am
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Is it possible to stop text from being underlined when using MXP?
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......................... A wise man once said:Never underestimate a newbie coder and the sheer amount of spare time they may accumulate.
RaM Fire Development Team. ROM from C to C++
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KaVir
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#5 id:37797 Posted Nov 19, 2009, 6:04 am
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Mudder said:I don't know much about screen readers but is there anything a MUD needs to do or should do to make these work well?
Here are some suggestions:
- Provide MSP support and a soundpack.
- Colour, prompts, ASCII art/maps/bars/etc, can all be switched off.
- Add an alternative way to provide the same information normally displayed by maps.
- Provide an alternative display format for data tables.
- If colour is used to highlight important information, provide an alternative.
- Configurable options that can reduce spam.
- Customisable aliases for displaying whatever information the player needs.
- A second port number for the mud that auto-enables screen reader options.
I've added all but the last one (but I know one mud which has done that, and I think it's a good idea if you want ASCII art on the greeting). Blind players seem to find navigating around my world pretty easy, as the coordinate-based movement allows them to simply target their desired destination and start walking - but that same movement system made navigating mazes without a map particularly difficult, and it took me a while to come up with a reasonable solution.
Also, you might find this article of interest: Spot On: The blind gaming the blind
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......................... KaVir at God Wars II: godwars2.org 3000 Roomless world. Manual combat. Endless possibilities.
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Mudder
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#6 id:37829 Posted Nov 19, 2009, 4:22 pm
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Thanks KaVir, that article was cool. Makes me want to ensure the MUD is blind friendly even more.
EDIT: I understand that color is useless to a blind person, but does color somehow affect a screen readers output? Why have it turned off in this case?
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......................... A wise man once said:Never underestimate a newbie coder and the sheer amount of spare time they may accumulate.
RaM Fire Development Team. ROM from C to C++
Last edited Nov 19, 2009, 4:23 pm by Mudder
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KaVir
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#7 id:37843 Posted Nov 19, 2009, 6:22 pm
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Mudder said:I understand that color is useless to a blind person, but does color somehow affect a screen readers output? Why have it turned off in this case?
I think it depends on their setup - most blind players actively turn it off, so I can only guess that the screen reader usually tries to read out the escape code. However I did have one blind player who wanted colour for his triggers.
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......................... KaVir at God Wars II: godwars2.org 3000 Roomless world. Manual combat. Endless possibilities.
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Mudder
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#8 id:37848 Posted Nov 19, 2009, 6:40 pm
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How many blind players do you have? Is this a rather large community?
Honestly I've never heard of a blind Mudder before I joined Mudbytes.
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......................... A wise man once said:Never underestimate a newbie coder and the sheer amount of spare time they may accumulate.
RaM Fire Development Team. ROM from C to C++
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KaVir
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#9 id:37853 Posted Nov 19, 2009, 7:02 pm
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Mudder said:How many blind players do you have? Is this a rather large community?
It's hard to give meaningful numbers, because of alts, people who play a bit and don't come back, etc. But of my 15004 pfiles, 623 have activated the 'screen reader' config option. If you were to assume that blind players are just as likely as sighted players to create alts, etc, that would mean around 4% of my players are blind. However I think it's only fair to point out that I have actively advertised on forums for blind gamers, and relatively few muds add such support, so I may well have a higher number of blind players than most muds.
The blind community may be small, but it's one that won't be lured away by fancy graphical MMOs.
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......................... KaVir at God Wars II: godwars2.org 3000 Roomless world. Manual combat. Endless possibilities.
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Mudder
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#10 id:37860 Posted Nov 19, 2009, 10:02 pm
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Do blind players generally prefer simply current hp versus current hp/max hp ?
I assume the trend it so avoid using symbols when not necessary. Maybe I should just download a screen reader and find out myself. Can anyone recommend a common one?
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......................... A wise man once said:Never underestimate a newbie coder and the sheer amount of spare time they may accumulate.
RaM Fire Development Team. ROM from C to C++
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Lyanic
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#11 id:37871 Posted Nov 20, 2009, 3:26 am
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Mudder said:How many blind players do you have?
I've encountered 14 blind MUD players, having unique IPs (thus not likely alts of the same person), on my MUD over the years. I don't think any of them have stayed permanently. Perhaps I should work on that at some point...
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The 7th Plane (7thplane.ath.cx 8888)
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Mudder
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#12 id:37875 Posted Nov 20, 2009, 3:57 am
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Is there a universal system in place for blind players? Like "Help blind," or "help screen reader" for all blind-friendly MUDs? It makes sense to keep things consistent.
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......................... A wise man once said:Never underestimate a newbie coder and the sheer amount of spare time they may accumulate.
RaM Fire Development Team. ROM from C to C++
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Lyanic
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#13 id:37880 Posted Nov 20, 2009, 4:34 am
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Mudder said:Is there a universal system in place for blind players? Like "Help blind," or "help screen reader" for all blind-friendly MUDs? It makes sense to keep things consistent.
Not that I've seen. Most blind players I've observed do three things when they first login: 1) Disable ANSI color, if the option was not disabled during character creation/by default, 2) Activate any available 'brief' modes for room descriptions or fight spam and 3) Check for some variant of a 'config' command to see what else they can turn off. Other than that, they seem to proceed just like any other player - although at a much slower pace.
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.........................
- Lyanic, Creator/Designer/Administrator
The 7th Plane (7thplane.ath.cx 8888)
Last edited Nov 20, 2009, 4:35 am by Lyanic
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