Mastodawn

panda ♥️ 🇪🇺1d ago

Steam just added screen reader support in the latest Big Picture Mode beta. On the Deck. On SteamOS. On Linux.
Not hacked in. Not community-patched. Built-in. From Valve.
There's an accessibility tab. There's a screen reader. There's high-contrast mode, UI scaling, color filters, reduced motion, and more.
I can’t believe I’m saying this but: I need a Steam Deck now.
Accessibility isn’t just coming to gaming — it’s here, and it’s official.
Let’s make some noise so they keep going.
🔗 https://www.theverge.com/games/689922/steam-is-adding-screen-reader-support-and-other-accessibility-tools
#Accessibility #Gaming #SteamDeck #ScreenReader #Linux #valve

Steam is adding screen reader support and other accessibility tools

Valve’s latest Steam beta adds new accessibility features to Big Picture mode and SteamOS.

The Verge

I updated it. I have no idea what happened here.

I don't know yet. I would think something custom but I'm not sure yet.

It defaults to it if you install with a screen reader. I'm not sure beyond that. Debian has packages that are older than I am, so I wouldn't worry about them dropping it any time soon.

Devin Prater :blind:1d ago

@fireborn Wonder if there's a way to turn on the screen reader without sighted assistance?

@pixelate There is, but on the website it's not obvious how.

@pixelate @fireborn same

Jonathan 1d ago

@fireborn Yeah, a Steam Deck is in my consideration range now as well, I mean why not? Would surely elevate my gaming experience a lot. Always nice to have something else than the generic audio game, and maybe I can even use my eyes a little bit, who knows.

Devin Prater :blind:1d ago

@fireborn Oh, it can be enabled at any time by pressing... image + image.

@pixelate Yeah. that's... not great.

Devin Prater :blind:1d ago

@fireborn According to AI, The screen reader can be enabled and disabled by pressing the "Steam" button and the "X" button simultaneously.

@pixelate @fireborn The AI got the "steam" button right, that is the one below the left trackpad. The button that the AI identified as "x" is called the "view" button and is located above the left joystick and d-pad.

@leaferiksen @pixelate thank you!

Matt Campbell 1d ago

@fireborn Are there still any parts of the installation and setup process for Steam on Windows that aren't accessible?

Matt Campbell 1d ago

@fireborn I've avoided buying games from Steam because my understanding was that some workarounds were necessary to use the Steam client with a screen reader. But maybe that knowledge is outdated? I hope so.

@matt I use steam on windows without issues, no command-line hacks required any more. It's clunky, but no worse than other web apps.

@matt It's sometimes easier to buy a game through the website and then install through the app, or just tell it to install on your machine via the site, but it's workable.

@matt @fireborn I use steam all the time for games, and it works just fine.

Took me a WHILE to understand “dropped” in that sentence

Dropped *with* accessibility? This is good news?

@clew Yes, sorry. as in, they just added it. This is huge. and new. It's really the first time they've talked about accessibility and it's not just a happy accident it works.

@fireborn Fuckin' aye. <3

I bought my Steam Deck at launch, then my vision degraded past the point where I can actually read the screen. So I've not been able to use it for months, not even enough to find the system update menu.

This would help. A lot.

twink pro max 1d ago

DroppedI interpreted that as removed
It took me a bit to realize it was added
:p

@theking Sorry about that. I'll edit.

@fireborn @theking Maybe just replace dropped (added) with added. I was confused too reading it, even seeing only the edited version; and took me reading the rest of the post for me to realize "dropped" = "released"

@sodiboo @theking Done.

neofox_flag_plural

@theking @fireborn same

- posted by Chloe

@fireborn omg that’s amazing
hopefully their work is applicable outside of steam too

@em I don't know any more than is on their explanation page. I'm hopeful, too.

@fireborn OMG that's so cool. I guess they where cooking that since quite a while. And it probably needs some stuff to get even better. But it's really cool to see a company like Valve working towards better accessibility.

LeonianUniverse😁1d ago

@pixelate @fireborn Hell yeah, now I want a steam deck.

@fireborn hmm is this like a fork or config of orca or something new ? and if new, is it open source ?

@bug I don't know anything other than what they disclosed. I don't have a deck yet to poke at it.

@fireborn this is great news!

@fireborn did they use orca? Or which screen reader is it?

Emmanuele Bassi 1d ago

@Isofruit @fireborn it’s Orca

@ebassi @fireborn in that case fingers crossed for valve furthering orca development or general work on newton!

@fireborn I think I'll get myself Steam Deck 2 when it's released one day (Steam Deck is a bit on the outdated side now). I actually never owned any handheld console ever, no Gameboys and stuff. Only thing I ever owned was those 99 in 1 hand consoles from the 90s that are just 99 variants of Tetris in different modes.

@fireborn Cool! We finally see the first concrete results of the European Accessibility Act!

@biou It's super exciting. I have hope that the EAA will encourage real change.

Andre Louis 1d ago

@fireborn I wonder if they did it because the Switch 2 also has it?

@FreakyFwoof Very possibly. I haven't used it to see how fleshed out it is to ague that.

Andre Louis 1d ago

@fireborn Have you heard my demo of the Nintendo offerings?

@FreakyFwoof I have. It could certainly be better but it's a good start.

Andre Louis 1d ago

@fireborn Yep, I check for all the things with each system update.

@FreakyFwoof @fireborn I was thinking that. LOL.

@fireborn oh my God, no shit!

@Brynify Yeah, it's really exciting stuff.

James Dean 1d ago

@fireborn This is a huge turn-around. Valve historicly hasn't cared about Accessibility much if at all. Big Picture Mode is already usable, nice that they're really making it work!

Nullstring 🏴‍☠️1d ago

@fireborn fucking awesome

Mckensie parker 1d ago

@fireborn Going to guess they're using ESpeak for the TTS engine?

@mckensie I would guess so.

Mckensie parker 1d ago

@fireborn Either that or they might use some compact version of Google TTS or something. The nintendo switch uses the neospeech voices. They could be using some other engine like Amazon or Google but you never know

@mckensie I highly doubt it, they're using Orca and speech-dispatcher

Mckensie parker 1d ago

@fireborn Or they could be using something like Dectalk. But I mean you could get it on there if wanted to either way

@mckensie There is no way they would use something legally dubious as DECTalk

Mckensie parker 1d ago

@fireborn I hope they don't use festival because that. just, no

@fireborn wonder if steam will provide games an api for accessibility settings at some point too, where a game can just see that you've enabled prefer reduce motion and automatically enable its equivalent when you start the game for the first time, without having to first go through the games settings to find it

yuki - queen of the snow 19h ago

@delta @fireborn if we go this route, i'd love to see them add like, "accessibility ratings" to games, or something like that!

@yukijoou @delta I heard something about adding accessibility features to the sidebar of the store when viewing a game.