Screen Reader Accessibility and Other Additional Feedback After First Character Build

Hi all,

So most of this feedback is accessibility-related, but I’ve thrown some other stuff in there too. I apologize if it’s a little rambly, and please feel free to ask for additional clarification on anything. I’ll update as I find more things to comment on.

I started creating my first character and just wrote down comments as I went along. I named him Valeros because that’s about the level of creativity I possess lol. That probably tells most of you his ancestry and class, but for those who don’t know who Valeros is, he’s a Human Fighter. Anyway, here’s my thoughts as I built my somewhat non-traditional version of Valeros.

On the My Characters page, none of the buttons that let you select from the different game systems are labeled for screen readers.

When clicking the button to create a character, a pop-up dialog appears to Select Game. None of the games in the list are labeled for screen readers.

On the first page of the character builder, where it says Select a Portrait, none of them are labeled in any way for a screen reader. Admittedly not major since most screen reader users can’t appreciate them, but they should be labeled with something.

Opinion, when adding your class, Key Ability should be above Ability Boosts in the list of stuff to do for your class. It’s not for Fighter. Not sure about the rest of the classes. It’d be more in line with the Pathfinder Core Rulebook because you apply the key ability score boost before the final four boosts. I notice that for some reason after I picked the key ability it moved up above the ability boosts, so not sure what that’s about.

When you choose the Natural Ambition Human feat and click the option to choose the class feat it gives you, it shows a list of all the class feats from all the classes. This is understandable if you haven’t picked a class yet, but once you pick a class this should definitely narrow down. Also, the buttons to go to the next pages of feats don’t seem to work in this particular selection. I’ve gotten them to work in other places but not the Natural Ambition feat selector.

have 3, but my intelligence score is 12 with a mod of +1, so I should have 4.

I noticed when I was picking my four free ability boosts that when I boosted intelligence it actually boosted Wisdom. I removed the intelligence boost and plopped it in Wisdom, and it actually went to intelligence. I don’t know why I find that so funny, but I definitely got a chuckle out of that one. Definitely needs to be fixed though.

Ok on to the actual character sheet. First thing I notice is that a lot of buttons are unlabeled. In a lot of cases they’re right by other things that let you know what they’re for so it’s usable, but frustrating. For instance, the buttons by every action to expand a description of what that action does are not labeled, but I was able to guess what they were for. Still needs to be fixed. On the other hand, there are buttons that close out of pop-ups on the sheet that I had to find just by clicking random things to try and make it go away. I clicked my initiative and it rolled it for me, but I couldn’t find the button that closed out of the role result. I finally did but it was unlabeled.

Probably the last thing I’ll get to tonight, but I can’t find a place to track money. I assume this is probably forthcoming. Also a way to add items by purchasing them and having the coin be deducted automatically. I’m mostly posting it here because it’s entirely possible I just missed it.

My final thoughts are I like most of what I see so far. Almost all the accessibility issues I’ve seen are with labeling of controls. Obvious alpha issues aside, this was a far more pleasant experience than my many failed attempts to use DND Beyond, which often gives me pop-ups during character creation that I can’t control or get out of when using a screen reader. I’ve never been able to create a character without sighted help using that character builder, but I didn’t have to ask for assistance once when using this one. You’re off to a great start Demiplane.
Just a quick update. I forgot for a minute that Adam originated DND Beyond also, Adam I remember during early access that you were very receptive to accessibility feedback, and honestly most of the problems I have with it now popped up after you moved on to Demiplane. Remembering how open you were to accessibility feedback is one of the main reasons I jumped at the chance to get in on early access over here.

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We appreciate the feedback! At this initial stage, we don’t really have anything configured properly yet, including proper labeling for screen readers (but also most things to be honest).

The good thing to hear and the takeaway for us at this point is we’re at a good starting point, and feedback like this will be invaluable for us as we move forward and finalize from here.

Thanks again!

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This is a serious consideration for inclusion on the CS, given that I am (at the moment) able to use the CC to buy items for my paltry wizard mock-up well in excess of what a 1st level character ought to be able to afford! Granted, as you mentioned this hasn’t yet been configured. It may also bear mentioning here that spells and cantrips may also require purchase power should a PC want to include them in excess of their standard allotment.

It’s absolutely a good start. I definitely didn’t expect everything to be completed in the alpha. I’ll still give feedback as I find things but I’m for sure aware that this is nowhere near complete yet.

You mean like adding the ability to purchase scrolls? I assume that’ll be added.

The ability to track currency will be added before we move into the public Open Beta, so that is coming soon.

The ability to have ways to “spend” your currency is on the roadmap for some time in the future, after the beta.

The key in the short term is the tracking, where you can manage your money manually, but we have some cool ideas for expanding to the “store” concept down the road.

Thanks!

Can’t wait. Just a crazy idea here for a way down the road feature. Being able to buy would be very handy as well as being able to sell, which I assume is part of the shopping functionality you’re thinking of for down the road. But do you have any thoughts for party inventory management? I’m managing party inventory in a first edition Kingmaker game right now, and I definitely dread looking up the pricing for every item to calculate out the sell value and then splitting it up. It’s easy math but very time consuming. A party inventory management system where you could just select a bunch of stuff you want to sell and then click a button or two to sell it and split up the gold would be wonderful.
I realize features like this are likely years away from happening, and that the priority is the character builder and making that fully usable. I do really love the thought of party management features like the ability to cast a Heal spell on one of your allies and have the healing apply automatically, or the ability for the GM to add loot to the party inventory when they find it if you’re using a module. Definitely not necessary, but stuff like that would definitely be neat.