Flight Rising Discussion

Hello all, we've made some accessibility related changes to the overall site layout. This update affects areas of the user interface like the top bar, side bar, etc., elements that are present on every page. Specific feature updates for areas of the site such as the Lair or Clan pages are in our plans for future updates, but they require thorough scoping and future-proofing. We hope that these changes will make navigating our site easier for players using screen readers or keyboard navigation to play Flight Rising.

The major changes are:

• We have added ARIA landmarks to quickly jump between major parts of the layout. This includes the site banner, left column (navigation), the main content area, the right column (on pages that have it), and the bottom bar that contains information such as the copyright notice and links to our Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, etc.
• We have made several dropdowns in the header area more keyboard and screen reader friendly. This includes the dropdown menu next to your username that contains links to Account Settings, Logout, etc. and the Friend Requests and Alerts dropdowns.
• We have added a Jump to Main Content link, which is first in the tab order, that allows you to jump to the main area of the page without tabbing through the entire top bar and left navigation bar.
• The left hand navigation headers (aka, the sidebar menu with Clan, Shop, Play, etc.) have been updated to screen reader friendly header tags, so they can be navigated with header navigation in screen readers.
• The Site Status box has been updated to be more easily navigable with screen readers.
• There has been a comprehensive pass on the surrounding site layout in general to improve screen reader friendliness.
• Gathering location dropdowns are now associated with a label that should improve their usability with screen readers.

While these changes apply to the vast majority of pages, some pages that are still running on our older code base do not have them yet; these will be addressed as we complete the remaining refactors.

If you use a screen reader to navigate our site and something on this list isn't working correctly, please let us know right away in the Bug Report Forums. Please be sure to include what screen reader software or device you're using when you do.

This list is not the end of our accessibility updates, but the start. As we mentioned above, larger features and mechanics will require thorough scoping and planning to ensure it's done correctly. Thank you for your patience while we work to make Flight Rising accessible. We appreciate you.