Hi everyone,
I hope you're all doing well. I'm reaching out to this wonderful community for some advice. As a blind musician and accessibility advocate, I love interacting with new people and making friends. Platforms like Clubhouse and TeamTalk have been great for meeting and hanging out with others, but I'm curious if there's an app out there that offers similar features and is available across major platforms such as iOS, Windows, etc. What I'm specifically looking for is:
• An app where people can gather, chat, and hang out.
• Strong accessibility features, ensuring a smooth experience for blind and visually impaired users.
• Cross-platform compatibility, so that friends using different devices can join in.
If anyone has any recommendations or experiences to share, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you in advance for your help!
Best regards,
Matthew Whitaker
By Matthew Whitaker, 17 June, 2024
Forum
iOS and iPadOS
Comments
Curious
Would love to know what options are out there? :-)
Me too
Teamtalk is the minimum viable product of open-source discord like, I know that mumble had accessibility issues back then don't know how it is now.
@Matthew Whitaker
To be 100% honest, I don't know much, but I know discord and teamtalk and discord has some minor accessibility issues on mobile but it's your best bet
1 it's very popular among all community and not just gaming, like openai they have their discord so it gives you an idea. it's the best pro/casual app for communication.
2 Available on all platforms, the ios (and probably android) is a real app but windows mac and probably linux is just an electron container with the website progressive app within. For me I use it on all three windows, mac and ios and it works pretty well.
The two ... important bugs you should be aware on ios are
1 the scrollbar is reversed, so when VO says 0% you are actually viewing the latest chat. Aside that the real bug is that you can't only rely on swipe left/right navigation as voiceover would randomly jump to x point in the conversation because of this scrollbar problem. But as long as you use a combination of explore by touch and making sure you are at 0% in the scrollbar or touching view latest messages (best way to do that is explore by touch) you will be fine.
2 although the rotor displaies actions like react or reply when you are on a message, they won't always (if never) work. This is a pretty minor one as you just have to do either a double tap long press, a triple tap if you haven't reassigned this gesture or 3d touch with iphone xs or less and then choose the desired action.
I use discord regularely on all platform and it works best on windows, then mac and ios in no particulare order.
I don't know if these accessibility bugs are dealbreaker or not for you though.
2THE BLLINDGUY
YOU ARE THE FIRST BLIND PERSON I'VE HEARD SAYING THAT DISCORD IS EASY. I'D LOVE IT IF YOU WROTE UP A USER GUIDE OR CHEAT SHEET OR WHATEVER FOR THOSE OF USE WHO ARE FLOUDERING IN DISCORD.
I use Discord
Yeah Discord can be a bit tricky, but that's a cool one.
How did you get passed the inaccessible captchas?
If they could drop the captcha’s I would be on cloud nine!
I’m locked out of discord and the app. What did you do to get passed this barrier?
Slack
Slack is a great app you might want to try.
The only issue is that the free version is a little bit limited. For example, huddles, which are the calls, are limited to two people on the free version.
Dave
Discord
Discord is more usable for me on Windows. I don't have a Mac, so I can't speak for it. The last time I tried using it on iOS, I encountered focus issues. Additionally, the problem with touch screen devices is that accidental screen contact can cause the focus to shift elsewhere.