Because our games are accessible for VI users, Discourse has asked that we give them some feedback regarding the forum software.
@Orinks can you tell us what it’s like? Any other VI users?
I didn’t know about this function that’s pretty cool. 
I think I fit this category because my right eye is totally blind from some weird birth defect and my left eye needs some correctional glasses for me to actually see anything. I can see, yes, but if I look at the computer screen for too long. I get head aches and the only other option for me is to use a text reader to know what’s on the screen. I also use a braille keyboard to write stuff because if I look at what I’m typing then I’ll be tempted to look at the computer screen which will only give me a head ache.
Now in regards to using your forum, it’s a little confusing at times. I know that three topics are pinned at the top and below are topics that move depending on what’s the latest. That’s the easy part, the hard part that I encountered, I’m not sure if other users experienced this. At the top it says “All categories” “Latest” “Top” “Categories”
What I find hard is that “All categories” and “Categories” are going to be read as the same thing when I use my text reader. I was thinking why it repeated? When I try to click the “All categories” it will read the topics, but it won’t have a description unlike if I click the “Categories” it will have a description. I don’t know about someone who can see the computer screen, but for me who can’t see the screen. I find both of those links confusing and my reader would keep on repeating the same thing.
The forum is easy to navigate because it’s not like the other forums that have advertisements popping somewhere or everywhere and since the page is simple the text reader is not reading me weird things that are not relevant to the page. When I click on a topic the first thing my reader will inform me is how many comments are there and since the software will automatically take you to the latest post, it was actually a breeze to use.
At the bottom there is a suggested topics that functions well, but when I reach this line “Want to read more? Browse other topics in” my reader would stop and for me to know what it is I have to click it. I don’t know why my reader stops reading that part.
The login and the sign up were easy to navigate, but the search option is weird. I know that there is a search option, but when I click it the reader doesn’t tell me if the pop out is out for me to start writing, so just skip that part. I’m not sure what is next to the search option because my reader doesn’t tell me what it was, so again I skip it.
If I log in there is a notification next to the search engine. That part works okay because if I click it my reader would actually just read what’s on it. I think there are other features that are usable in the forum, but my reader doesn’t pick it up so I might be skipping some things. I know there is a badge system because I received some, but I have no clue to where to find them or where my profile is. I’m not sure if there is a profile page on this forum?
That’s all I can say about my experience while using the CoG forum.
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This post is a bit long and winded, but it gives my feedback on Discourse and forums in general. HTH.
Hello,
This forum software is, for the most part, accessible on Windows, more or less so depending on what browser you use. I’m getting into the swing of using Firefox and a lot of trouble I had on the Mac side of things using Safari seems to be okay on Windows and Firefox. On the Mac, with big topics such as Community College Hero, it’s impossible to find what I want at times. Sure, it’s great that it immediately brings me to my last spot I read which was my last post on that topic. However, since I’m not sure if devs always edit the first post with the latest up to date link of In-progress games, it took me a half hour to find the link that was posted at the time, the most recent one. This also happened on IE, where paging down autoscrolls the topic so that you’d be on another page and suddenly the first post on page one isn’t the first post anymore, it might be post 26 on page three.
This whole skimming through topics sounds great if I were sighted. I can just read without having to worry about clicking page two, three, etc every twenty or thirty posts. For screen readers it’s a royal pain, especially if you’re looking for a certain post. I’ll test more, but I really wish they would add headings for each post. Furthermore, an option to supress all the information I don’t need to necessarily see when I’m reading a topic is all of the user information such as how many posts the user has, the users who have been posting in the topic listed–all i really care about is the username, the subject of this topic and the message. If people want that other stuff they can put it below the messages or something, since in my opinion, the messages and contents of the actual topic comes first, not all of the other fluff. I know one of the main Discourse developers a bit, and I’ll refer to one of his other projects as to how forums should be laid out. While ForumWarz does have the fluff associated with most forums in their parody design of forums, it only has username, number of posts and message, that’s it. No auto scrolling issues there, and those forums update in real time. The main issue I have isn’t necessarily auto scrolling, and it shouldn’t be removed. If something can be done, however, we need to figure out a way to implement something where if the auto scrolling feature lose our place, to get back there quickly again. The ability to instantly jump to a numbered post in a topic, for instance. But, say, if the post I was looking for is a ways down, I page down with regular scrolling and i’m almost there, page down again… oops there’s another page, so 20 more posts just appeared, have to page up and risk scrolling away from it again.
I hope this helps and I hope it explains the main issue I have with it. Reading post by post in a discussion is fine. But when I’ve read through that and want to read a post, it can be hard to find within hundreds of posts.
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