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Ht is 95% accessible to visually impaired people

Written by leonardopanta

Minutes ago I read an article about a community of visually impaired people in Portugal that helped me as an inspiration to write this article.
The purpose of this article is to let you know that Hattrick is accessible and that visually impaired people do have access to the internet, and let you know too how reading screen programmes work.
Maximiliano Vazquez

Minutes ago I read an article about a community of visually impaired people in Portugal that helped me as an inspiration to write this article.
I am visually impaired because I was born a three-months premature baby (21-08-1986). At present, I am studying I.T. and I am attending a course on programming.
Taking into account that the internet is a world in which everyone should have the right to access to with as few inconveniences as possible, I believe that Hattrick is 95% accessible and that a visually impaired user can play this game without experiencing serious inconveniences.
Thanks to reading and magnifying programmes, visually impaired or near-blind people can succeed in using his pc without problems. These reading programmes translate to the oral medium any text typed or shown in the screen. Plus, they have commands that allow for an easy way to use the system, like keys to access specific functions, reordering the information for a better reading, etc.
Last year I decided to play Hattrick, after a friend convinced me. I had said no telling him that it was too difficult, that Hattrick was constantly refreshing and that it would not let me play.
One day I decided to give it a try and in less than two weeks I had my own team playing in a league.
It was not easy to play Hattrick, I remember that the image was divided in frames and I had to set my reading programme so that it would not refresh continually. Anyway I could adapt and access to an 80% of the game. I still remember I lost my first match because I could not set the line-up —although I thought I had!
Obviously, no one is expecting Hattrick to be 100% accessible, but we do expect to play it normally.
It is not that websites have to adapt to visually impaired people, but both visually impaired people and the websites have to adapt, doing everything they can to make accessibility the best they can. An example taken from my reality is that I set my reading screen so that it does not refresh permanently.
The biggest problem with accessibility is the Captcha, which prevents —through the validation of characters printed in a graphic— automatic registrations. The solution is to ask for help to someone that can see or try to decipher it with an OCR, but this second option is not possible sometimes because it goes against the aim of the Captcha. Some webpages allow for validation with an audio file which dictates to the user the code. This is just an example, since I do not remember having problems when registering in Hattrick and, after all, you just have to register once. Anyway there are pages which ask to write the Captcha in every form.
Luckly, Hattrick is a community and the administrators carry out surveys taking into account users’ needs before taking a decision.
Recently, Hattrick redesigned the website, there are not so many frames, the website is faster and still accessible. Not only the appearance has improved, but also many aspects of the game.
The purpose of this article is to let you know that Hattrick is accessible and that visually impaired people do have access to the internet, and let you know too how reading screen programmes work.

Let us keep on growing in Hattrick.
Maximiliano Vazquez

Written by maximilianogv (8017105)
Traslated by Federación Escritores Hattrick (84406)