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Accessibility: Narrator Improvements

As a visually impaired, veteran Minecraft player, I have to say I really appreciate the idea of adding accessibility options to this amazing game. I have enough vision to see the game reasonably well, but to see the stats and enchantments on my diamond sword, I have to hunch over my laptop--which isn't comfortable. Although the text-to-speech option is working very well, my visually impaired friends and I have found other narration aspects to be lacking. My suggestion is to improve the existing narrator and expand its options and settings.

First of all, the narrator doesn't read anything in the player inventory, which is one of the only reasons I personally need the narrator to play comfortably.

Currently, the narrator reads very slowly. Most people who use narration on a regular basis have their speech speed much faster than the Minecraft narration speed.

Another thing I think legally blind players would benefit from would be to have the narrator say what block the player is looking at.

I absolutely love this game and hope it will become more and more accessible with future updates!

(Note: I use Java and Windows 10 to play, some of my friends use pocket edition.)

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  • 2
    Registered User commented
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    Yes, please.

     

  • 5
    Registered User commented
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    Hello!

    I am blind too, but my blindness is more hard and doesn't allow me to see the game, I only can see structures, in a plain world and I use hig contrast buildings to be able to build my home, or something like that. I use obsidian to build, or wood.

     

    I am also agree that the more important thing in accessibility needs is the player inventory menu, and have a shortcut to search directly in the search in inventory box, and give narrator the ability to speak quickly what items are you selecting or hovering. also, I think you can add the ID of the item to the sentence narrated, and have the ability in the search box to find items using only their item id.

    Other idea is to create  a shortcut, pressing a key that speaks the block you are seeing in the target, and speak any item selection in the inventory

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    My girlfriend is visually impaired and struggles to see her inventory, crafting, and blocks. If the narrator could read what an item was or group of blocks that would be incredibly helpful to her. Currently, she can't play without sitting extremely close to the tv or without me narrating for her.

  • 4
    Registered User commented
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    I am a visually impaired gamer, and I fully suport this. 

  • 4
    Registered User commented
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    I agree! A narrator for inventory would be helpful for my visually impaired friends. 

  • 4
    Registered User commented
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    I agree it would also be good if narrator would announce items created as you create them as well as announce all inventory items on every platform including PlayStation 4

  • 5
    Registered User commented
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    Hello,

    While I am very impressed by the accessibility in Mine craft Dungeons, I am sadly, not able to say the same thing in the regular edition of mine craft. While menu narration reads the menus, it does not give any useful information once your world loads.

    The biggest area that should be looked in to is your inventory. Currently the only thing we are told is 1 of 10, but 1 of 10 what? Slots, Weapons, armor, what are we looking at?

    Also, if we come across items, such as a river, or Lava  we do not have any indication that we have found it, unless we pick up the sound.  I think the accessibility team for Dungeons and the team for regular mine craft should get together, because dungeons is playable for me as a totally blind person. While I enjoy a good hack n slash, I would love the ability to craft and create, something that is not found in the latest release.

    If Menu narration read the inventory, and read when we came across items, or important locations,  and read tutorial hents such as how to mine, when you approached your mine when you found your house, when you approached your bed for sleeping, etc, it would be a huge help in making the game playable for us. 

    Thank you so much for reading this and I hope to see continued work in this area in future updates.

  • 3
    Registered User commented
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    I would also like it if the narrator could read signs in the Minecraft world, and also read named items in Item Frames.