Not Actually Accessible

Devs? You flubbernucked your stuff.

The new UI is not growing on people. Maybe on some but not to the extent you were hoping for. I'm still optimistic, I have hope you read these messages. Because there has to be some hope for teams that have made an app that up until two weeks ago was an amazing alternative to Skype. I still love how generally, Discord is very easy to keep organised. I still love the icons for servers, the categories and channels within servers, getting to make lovely little roles with lovely colours to distinguish them...if so desired.

And that's one of the biggest problems with the new UI: there is no choice. Yes: there is "accessibility mode" for changing font size, spacing. Theme style is still up to user choice. But there's no options for turning off the jarring "highlighting" of messages. No option to turn off the pop-up reaction menu. No options for making that last message in a conversation be further up from the texting bar, so it doesn't feel like one is missing some of the message.

Which leads to the other, glaringly important problem: these new changes and inability to choose whether to use them or not is not accessible. The flicker of highlighting when the cursor skims over a message window or during scrolling has--judging by recent complaints in this feedback forum--caused migraines, triggered seizures. I know it's given me anxiety, frustration, and just a sense of wrong when I'm generally pretty chill about stimulus. The lack of barrier/border lines between message groups sent by different people has made it confusing at times and frustrating to read. From what I've read in here: this is doubly frustrating and confusing for people with difficulty reading, ADHD, or dyslexia. A fair number of people--myself included--love (or did love) using Discord to keep in contact with people from the same fandoms or interest groups from far away. These are people who are not neurotypical. And they are not a small population of the user base. Discord has been the best option for letting them make and keep contact with others who have the same interests, to let them have a social life.

Until this point.

Because the latest update is causing issues for these people. There's no fix. When people want to use third-party programming to make your app genuinely accessible to them, even at the risk of being banned, there's a problem. And it's not with your user base. You've already made strides towards accessibility. Just take those few steps more, please.

At the very least: please listen to your user base that has supported you. Some of them even pay you for services. Please justify the faith we're exhibiting by reaching out on this forum, shouting out in varying levels of politeness and lengths of complaint, and in fairly decent numbers.