Thread by @SoapyMargherita

Gather round kids! Regrettably, it's time for another episode of "Scott Calls Out Bullshit Accessibility".
These disappointments are brought to you by old faithful, Native Instruments. Great to non-optionally have you along for the ride @NI_News. Let's get this over with. 1/many

@NI_News Yesterday, I upgraded to Kontakt 7 Player on one of my Windows machines. Thankfully not the mission crytical one, and I'll put it right on the front end that if you're a screen reader user, you should avoid this version for now on yours.

@NI_News I took a poke around version 7 of Kontakt in the hope that there might be some accessibility to work with, because in this version, NI have transitioned to building on QT.

@NI_News Point being, @NI_News no longer have their hands tied by an ancient UI stack, which has been the prevailing reason for a lack of access to Kontakt's GUI up until now.

@NI_News For evidence that a GUI built on QT can be accessible, iLok License Manager would be one example where screen reader users are already navigating with gusto.

@NI_News It's also worth adding that this isn't NI's first shot at QT, so let's take that getout clause off the table. A previous product built on the same technical bedrock has been out in the wild for 2 years, and is still a long way from being as accessible as it could easily be.

@NI_News I started by moving focus into the GUI. My screen reader reported "Kontakt 7 window", a marked improvement on "unknown", which is what it would've said in all prior versions of Kontakt. A sign of good things to come? Spoiler alert: hahaha, nope.

@NI_News The topmost area of the GUI (containing the floppy disk icon which loads patches and multis) isn't keyboard navigable. None of the icons are exposed to accessibility APIs in any form yet. With no roles or attributes assigned, screen reader software can only skate on by.

@NI_News It wasn't possible to get anything done with OCR either. Continued use of icons and no accompanying text, a poor UX choice by today's standards.

@NI_News I tried loading a patch. In version 7, this involves clicking the floppy disk icon (ya know, the one that's impossible to select with keystrokes), and now additionally making a selection from a popup menu (thereby adding complexity for third-party scripts to achieve the task).

@NI_News Workaround notes for screen reader users: if you can save coordinates for the floppy disk to return to that spot, it's possible to do a first load. You'll need to click the hotspot, then tackle the menu objects (pressing arrow keys just hurled focus out of the GUI here).

@NI_News Bad news though, the position of our floppy friend moves dynamically once a patch is loaded, so that hotspot you probably needed sighted help to collect is only gonna work once.

@NI_News FWIW, these are the coordinates I've saved to clickedy flop with Golden Cursor NVDA add-on:
Position X: 434; Position Y: 111.
Screen res was 1920 x 1080, 100% scaling.
Hope someone can use it.

@NI_News Moving through the elements of the GUI that are newly exposed to screen readers now, I'll describe current accessibility (and functionality where I can) in hierarchical order:

@NI_News 1. We have a search field. It's labelled and has the correct role assigned. Can't navigate the results it finds with a keyboard yet, but let's keep those expectations calibrated and press onward.

@NI_News 2. Now cometh two more check boxes that are part of the search bar, both unlabelled, but they can be interacted with. Those are:
- Toggle between factory and user content in browser (unlabelled check box)
- Filter by favourites (unlabelled check box).

@NI_News 3. Next up, a check box and button to control browser behaviour, both unlabelled (are you sensing a theme yet?). Here are their tooltips:
- Pin the browser to keep it open after loading presets (unlabelled check box)
- Close the content browser (unlabelled button).

@NI_News 4. I found what I can only describe as a UFC (unlabelled fucking checkbox). Couldn't seem to get a tooltip to appear or figure out its purpose.

@NI_News 5. Scroll bar, not workable with keystrokes so far as I could tell.

@NI_News 6. Import Content (unlabelled button).
"Ooooh, what's this? I'd like to import some content!"

@NI_News Please do not permit yourself a glimmer of excitement, loading patches isn't accessible here. This is to import legacy libraries etc. The dialog it opens appears a few moves later in the hierarchy and does seem usable to some extent (only took a cursory poke at it).

@NI_News 7. Lo and behold, we reach the first button with a label. Y'all ready for this?

"Show <font color="#ffffff">446</font> Presets" (button).

Well butter my bottom and call me Berty, do you remember how shit life was back before we knew the colour value of our preset counts?

@NI_News Workaround notes for screen reader users: if you toggle this with a simulated left-click, it reveals presets on the right of the display. The label preempts the action, IE, the button will report "hide" when the presets are visible.

@NI_News I couldn't figure out how to move to or through presets navigating the object hierarchy, but was able to OCR to locate the topmost preset, left-click to route focus there, then move with up and down arrows.

@NI_News Previews played as I moved through presets from NKS compatible libraries. Nice! no screen reader feedback yet though.

@NI_News 8. Display and edit preset properties and tags (unlabelled check box).
If checked while presets are shown, this populates each row of the preset list with extra info like library, vendor, instrument type etc. Right now, it only increases OCR scan time and clutters the result.

@NI_News That brings me to the end of the GUI rundown. Final note of caution, there's nothing even close to a meaningful tab order. Mmm, nicely done (I don't think).

@NI_News And so, for all NI's talk of accessibility being important to them (that talk being rolled out as recently as last month on a public-facing panel), this is what's been released.

@NI_News Accessibility still not integrated into the development cycle despite new potential, no meaningful progress across a major version bump, and breakage of reputable third-party tools that take up the slack. NO warnings to users either. What a doozy.

@NI_News I have to ask, how did this come to Pass? NI have screen reader users on their beta programs! Where is the feedback they're submitting going? Why is there no sign of it being acted on?

@NI_News I don't know why this situation is what it is, but whatever the current testing setup is, it seems fair to say that ain't working.

@NI_News Please note: there's a significant difference between saying "that ain't working" versus accusing folks with early access of not investing effort. I'm disappointed by the former, I'm not claiming the latter.

@NI_News To wrap up then, I hope this thread draws attention to empty talk. I hope it illustrates how badly a loyal customer base is being short-changed. I hope loyal customers who deserve a lot better by now vote with their wallets until this situation improves.

@NI_News In my experience, actions speak louder than words, and here, the action around this release feels like a greasy middle finger up at customers who depend on accessibility.
C'mon @NI_News, prove me wrong before too long.

@NI_News 'Til next time someone earns one of these rundowns, take care of yourselves (and go get Surge XT, its devs actually give a shit about you).