Accessibility for people with impairments.
A person with a physical impairment is not disabled... it is the world they live in and the thoughtlessness of others that disables them.
It appears that Sweden unlike the UK has no statutory requirement for accessibility to the web and web apps.
It does however have guidance
In Sweden, Verva, the Swedish Administrative Development Agency is responsible for a set of guidelines for Swedish public sector web sites. Through the guidelines, Web accessibility is presented as an integral part of the overall development process and not as a separate issue.
The Swedish guidelines contain criteria which cover the entire lifecycle of a website; from its conception to the publication of live web content. These criteria address several areas which should be considered, including:
accessibility
usability
web standards
While I am fully aware that this is a game, not a public sector website, are the developers really so ignorant of advice such as this, just too lazy to follow even the basics, or do they just not give a **** ?
Come on MA let the world see that Sweden can not just follow best practice but actually be leaders in it.
Programming for accessibility will actual improve the usability for all players.
1. Nice dark background to any panels containing text
2. High contrast colours for the text.
3. Selection of very disparate colours (player selectable) to enable people to pick what works for them.
4. Reduce clutter not increase it, at this rate we will soon be unable to play due to lack of visible game area. Get rid of the unnecessarily large headers.
5. I like the idea mentioned earlier of using boxes that slide in from the side or even drop downs, so we only need an icon until we use the window in question (chat or fl etc)
6. Anyone with a visual impairment struggles with large volumes of test.. this system has increased that. Can we please turn off repair and heal messages so we can actually see skill lines. Too much info is worse than none, and gets in the way of player enjoyment.
and here's a thought
How about testing new interfaces on real players and on different set ups before inflicting it on the whole player base.
New Pc's and older models, laptops, single and dual screen, wide and standard..
Youngsters and older models lol
get some real feedback and do the tweaks before go live...
I think you would be amazed at how much respect you would gain from your player base. How much more likely people would be to give you money and keep giving you money, if you only sat back and really really listened to them, and were seen to act on it.
I love this game, I want to be here 10+ years like many of my friends have... please make it somewhere I want to stay