UI changes reduce accessibility (reading difficulties & ADD)

ida

I've seen lots of threads about this topic already so I'm sorry for adding to the spam, but I want to offer my own perspective as someone who might be especially impacted by this change beyond just being annoyed because it's different.

So, I have ADD (which makes it really difficult for me to focus on a stream of text in particularly active servers, and makes visual distractions a huge problem in genereal) and a minor visual impairment that means I struggle to follow lines of text, and I'm prone to losing my place or even feeling motion sick when text is moving (mostly horizontally, but also vertically to a degree).

There are two problems with the new update that exacerbate these problems for me:

1) The horizontal line was a great anchor for me; if anything I'd have liked an option to make it appear MORE. It made sure that whenever one was generated, I could keep my place in the text much easier (essentially like running your finger underneath a line of text, but the computer does it for you!) and also acted as a subtle reminder of where in the text I was if I got distracted by something else and had to come back to reading. If you don't want to add it back in as a default feature, please at least let us have it as an accessibility feature.

2) The addition of automatic line highlighting is a mixed bag of good and bad for me. I tend to use my mouse cursor to keep track of what I'm looking at on the very busy chat screen, so highlighting might actually *help* in some regard by making it more obvious which line I'm currently reading so I don't lose my place, but the reaction bar has the unfortunate side effect of causing *heavy* visual noise anywhere I go to move my mouse, which is unpleasant and distracting. I would suggest removing this bar entirely and making line highlighting (as in, just the colour change) a stand-alone, opt-in accessibility feature. You've got a good idea with this one but it's just not implemented well as it stands.

All that said, I don't think this is purely an accessibility problem; I think these are problems that could make it at least slightly more difficult for anyone to read no matter if they have similar conditions to me or not. However, I wanted to add another perspective to this conversation, hence my focus on how it impacts these conditions.

On a positive note, customisable line spacing is a great addition, I hope you don't roll that back!

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Comments

5 comments

Date Votes
  • Derp.uty Reyve

    I can agree with you completely.
    I don´t suffer from ADD myself, but I can definitely imagine how bad it must be for you - it´s already distracting me and looks weird to me. Granted, I could propably get used to it, but I definitely prefer the older version. 

    In conclusion I would like to suggest that these changes will be made a Option in the settings.

    13
  • Katzaklysmus

    I might not suffer from ADD myself, but I'm visually sensitive and get visual overloaded quite fast.
    Additional to that, I get distracted easily as I have a huge problem with concentrating on things, especially reading, so the new "features" are more like a downgrade for me.

    I'd be more than happy if they'd be options.

    11
  • silverpaws
    • Edited

    I also have ADD and wowe, it's rough for me to try reading messages right now without the line putting a space between groups of messages. I hate how it looks right now, and as I stand, I just straight up can't read messages without way more focus then I needed before. The messages highlighting when I hover over them is sort of whatever for me, but I wish it was something I could turn off. The reaction bar is just....horrible. I hate it so much, and wish I could turn it off as well. I just hope they either revert these changes completely or give the old look as an option to turn on or off.

    Edit: Another thing that comes to mind is the fact that I don't use compact mode for a reason, I like everything being spaced out and if I wanted it to be compact I would use that mode for that reason. But I don't. So don't change the non-compact form to be more compact. More compact doesn't make it better.

    11
  • ❄✨okijoki✨❄

    I don't have ADD, but it is extremely distracting and off-putting for me. Previous Discord updates took a while to get used to, but not that they were bad! This one is bad though. The highlighting would be neat if the reaction bar wasn't there. It's too flashy and it stresses me out. It's hard to focus on what people are talking about and it's distracting to see the reaction bar pop up every time my mouse is on a message.

    6
  • AAPL 09/18/2020 120.00p (write)

    i have ADHD and reading text on discord after this update is stressful.

    1

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