Roll20 Testing for a blind user

[nickl_2000]

Hello all, I was wondering if anyone either had a character sheet that I could see or a game that I could join and create a temporary character for in Roll20. In a Facebook group that I am in, someone asked about access to character sheets for a Blind player and I wanted to test the accessibility of roll20 for a blind user.



EDIT: I did test DNDBeyond, and it was not good. A blind user would be miserable trying to use DNDBeyond in a game.

[Man_Over_Game]

Hello all, I was wondering if anyone either had a character sheet that I could see or a game that I could join and create a temporary character for in Roll20. In a Facebook group that I am in, someone asked about access to character sheets for a Blind player and I wanted to test the accessibility of roll20 for a blind user.



EDIT: I did test DNDBeyond, and it was not good. A blind user would be miserable trying to use DNDBeyond in a game.

The unfortunate solution may just have to be to play a game that utilizes Theater of the Mind a bit better, and rely less on grid-based combat. Technically, the 5e grid rules are optional, "variant" rules, but I'd rather suggest just moving to an RPG that does it better.

13th Age might be a good start.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Roll20 is free and has all the basic rules, just create an account and make a game and build a character.

[nickl_2000]

The unfortunate solution may just have to be to play a game that utilizes Theater of the Mind a bit better, and rely less on grid-based combat. Technically, the 5e grid rules are optional, "variant" rules, but I'd rather suggest just moving to an RPG that does it better.

13th Age might be a good start.

Thanks, I will mention that to the person.


Roll20 is free and has all the basic rules, just create an account and make a game and build a character.

I did create and account and a game in it. I can't figure out how to make a character!

[jaappleton]

I can't watch them currently because I'm at work, but a quick YouTube search has many videos on how to make a character on Roll20.

One of them might be worth looking at.

[nickl_2000]

Finally figured it out, and woo Roll20 is really, really bad. Worse than DNDBeyond

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Finally figured it out, and woo Roll20 is really, really bad. Worse than DNDBeyond

Maybe try Fantasy Grounds?


What exactly is bad about Roll20? It's not very intuitive but once you get to know it, it's a lot easier. Granted I don't think it would be a great choice for a completely blind player, but that doesn't make it bad as a platform.

You may have selected the wrong character sheet for your game, I use "D&D 5E by Roll20" which pretty much matches the DNDBeyond sheet.

If you don't use the charactermancer you need to fill everything out by hand.

You can look up items and feats and spells in the compendium tab and drag them onto your character sheet. Those will populate as attacks automatically when appropriate.

[nickl_2000]

Maybe try Fantasy Grounds?


What exactly is bad about Roll20? It's not very intuitive but once you get to know it, it's a lot easier. Granted I don't think it would be a great choice for a completely blind player, but that doesn't make it bad as a platform.

You may have selected the wrong character sheet for your game, I use "D&D 5E by Roll20" which pretty much matches the DNDBeyond sheet.

If you don't use the charactermancer you need to fill everything out by hand.

You can look up items and feats and spells in the compendium tab and drag them onto your character sheet. Those will populate as attacks automatically when appropriate.

When it comes to ADA compliance there are several things that you need to do for a screen reader to work correctly. Basically when you are sighted and look at the screen you can see the word Charisma next to the box that says charisma. In HTML if you set the word Charisma as a label then the screen reader can do the same thing. In this case, not a single data input box had a label associated with it, making it nearly impossible for a non-sighted user to use efficiently (or possibly) at all.


I wasn't saying that the platform was bad in general, I was simply saying that for a user who can't see well it is bad.

[NaughtyTiger]

When it comes to ADA compliance there are several things that you need to do for a screen reader to work correctly.

a lot of that is user generated. i certainly didn't code for ADA compliance on the things I added.

[nickl_2000]

a lot of that is user generated. i certainly didn't code for ADA compliance on the things I added.

I was probably sounded harsher than I intended in my messages, many developers don't know to code for that in their professional life, much less will bother in custom things they created for themselves.

[NaughtyTiger]

I was probably sounded harsher than I intended in my messages, many developers don't know to code for that in their professional life, much less will bother in custom things they created for themselves.

i prolly sounded more defensive than i intended... as a dev i definitely don't know to code for that in my stuff (my pro code is explicitly for robots)

[jaappleton]

i prolly sounded more defensive than i intended... as a dev i definitely don't know to code for that in my stuff (my pro code is explicitly for robots)

Oh so I finally have someone to blame for Skynet!