Would appreciate some help with my theme

[grapefruit]

I have been doing pretty well with my theme, but I was wondering if anyone could help me make a few icons because I can't find them. My forum is blindnd.boards.net. It will be the discussion base for an advocacy group for both blind and neurodivergent People. Some people might be partially blind, and there will be sighted allies as well, so having visually appealing icons is important. I'm not sure what color would be the best. Maybe red or lime green or something like that. The color doesn't matter that much as long as it looks good with the theme. Here are the ones I'm having trouble with.

The bookmarked icon is an open book with a bookmark, but I wanted to change it so that it would look like a braille book. It can have print in it as well. It probably won't be that detailed so it just has to look like it. It doesn't have to actually say anything. Events is a calendar, but I wanted it to have braille as well to be an inclusive print in braille calendar. I wanted the pole one to be tactile how graphs are tactile when they are produced with the embosser. I know it is a picture, but what I mean is I wanted it to look tactile in the picture. And then for the Board icons for new post, no new post, and indirect, where the paper is sticking out of the folders and there is writing, I want it to look like it is in braille as well. Also if there's writing on the folders I wanted the folders to look like they are labeled. If it is so detailed that you can see each dot in the picture, there is a braille font where you can just write with it and it would show you what it would look like but I don't think icons are that detailed. For board statistics, I wanted the graph to look like it was tactile and like it was also labeled in print in braille. For email and new message, I wanted it to show that the message was also In Braille in the envelope. And then for the 24 hours graph, I wanted the pie chart to look Tactile and look like it is labeled in print and braille.
Can anyone help? Or is it too hard? If it is, I apologize. I have never done a forum before, and I don't know a lot about icons. I just don't want The icons of this group to depict a lot of inaccessible books, calendars, and printed messages.

[Beckea]

Share a link to your forum and make it viewable to people to view it.

[grapefruit]

My forearm is blindnd.boards.net. I'm not sure what you mean by make it public, but there aren't any posts or anything on it right now. I'm just getting it set up, so I haven't started inviting people yet. Right now it just has three boards, community, members, and moderators. Guests will have access to only the community board. Each board has no subcategories yet and nothing on it. However, if it still needs to be completely public, I can do that if it would help more. I'm not sure if you meant make all of the boards public or what you were saying. I gave a link to it in the post so that people could just see the theme that I have and what it looks like. I was just trying to get it completely set up first though because I don't want to confuse everybody by changing everything all the time so that is why I thought I would make sure everything was good before I invited them.

[Kami]

In order to make a request you need to share the link to the forum and it needs to have "guests must log in" set to "no" in your settings. That's simply just the guidelines established on this forum.

That said, speaking not just as a web designer / developer, but also as a UX/UI QA specialist, AND also as a visually impaired and photosensitive individual, please let me encourage you to not do any of what you're planning.

Subtle nods to braille and other visual aids are fun and immersive, but the changes you are suggesting actually negatively impact the way accessibility functions online. The best way to make a site accessible is to actually use LESS imagery / special characters and more plain text so that screen readers can have a more accurate read back. There's also no point in making things braille because there's no tactile feedback -- a subtle nod design wise sure but putting braille translations on a 2D medium is about as effective as putting a wheelchair ramp at the top of some stairs.

The colours suggested (red and lime green) are also absolutely horrific when it comes to eye strain and contrast. On a personal note, lime green and other neon colours immediately trigger migraines and, in some severe instances, visual auras.

All in all please, I'm begging you, if your intent is to make a visually accessible forum please abandon this theme idea and do some extensive research on web accessibility and accessible web design. I don't have the bandwidth to create a theme for you coding wise but I'd be more than happy to discuss over PM if you need a guiding hand. I 100% appreciate and respect what you're trying to do -- and I love the push for inclusiveness in the imagery used! -- but there are a lot of much better, more contemporary, and most importantly more accessible ways to go about it.

[grapefruit]

Yes, a guiding hand would be good. I am totally blind so I don't know. If you could look at my theme and figure out what would make it more accessible to partially blind people that would be good. Mine is set to know for guests must be logged in, but guests can only see the community board. They can't see members or moderators. Also, I am using a screen reader, and basically everything on here is accessible, but there is one thing that I'm having trouble with. I am having trouble with we ordering the plug-ins in the list and deleting a plug-in. I was able to get some help, but I wasn't sure if it really is not accessible with a screen reader or if it is just my browser or what. If it is not accessible, I don't know why or even how to make a feature request. I know that the braille would not be tactile. I would not be able to read it and other blind people would not be able to read it either. Right now I don't have a lot of lime green in my theme, but I knew that having a black background with white text is easier for someone's eyes, so that is what I did, but then finding other colors that would have enough contrast with the black was hard. I had to get some help, And the person helping me was saying that a lot of colors did not contrast very well with the black. I was born blind, so it is hard to know what would be accessible for a partially blind person. Also, I did add the plug-in to my forum where users can select their own Theme including guests. But if you could go and look, or if you could help me, that would be great. I do not want to start this group only to have it not be accessible. I thought my suggestions would make the icons look more inclusive for sighted people who are allies who are also on there. With a screen reader, the icons don't even register at all. For example, I press new post, and I am just making a new post, but apparently the icon shows a folder that is yellow, with a piece of paper coming out of it that says new. I was going to require accessible photos and videos if they are going to be posted, but I wasn't sure what to do about avatars because I wanted them to be accessible to. I don't even know what my avatar is on this thing. But yes, if you could send me a private message, that would be good. I'm not completely sure what to do.

[Kami]

So the way that your screen reader picks up what an image is, is by HTML -- there is a thing called Alt Text, which is short for Alternative Text. I believe that by default ProBoards images use either the word "image" with brackets around it, or an indication of what the image is supposed to represent, such as "bookmark" without providing a text description such as "Image of a Book with a Bookmark on the page".

Unfortunately, screen readers can't assist with
plugins and there is nothing I can do to make it so (you cannot modify the admin panel). This is something PB will have to change themselves. I'm tagging a PB admin to see, as this is an important change needed, if not now then the upcoming new version. Tagging Michael for vis.

I get what you're saying, about wanting to make the site more appealing to sighted users, but honestly sighted users benefit more from familiar iconography than they do specialised icons. The web has standardised what specific images mean, so the farther you deviate from that the less intuitive it will be (and it doesn't benefit completely blind users at all, so there winds up being no point to the effort expended).

I'll send you a PM. Bear in mind I may not be fully responsive since I do work a full time job, but I'll help you out whenever I am able.

[grapefruit]

I have also tried to do research as well, but they just show a lot of pictures. You say there would be more accessible ways to do what I'm trying to do, so what would those be? Should I just remove the icons altogether? But I thought I shouldn't do that because some people rely on them. If you could look at my forum to know how I could change the theme that would be good. To be clear, guests do not have to login. I have it set to where guests can access the community board, but members and moderators is hidden from them. If I need to set it up differently to follow the rules here, I definitely can, but right now guests can just come, and they can make a post on the community board if they wish. However, they just cannot access any other boards. When you go there, you won't see any posts or anything on it because it is just getting set up so there is nothing on it yet. See, it's good that I didn't start inviting people yet since actually it might not be accessible yet. I know they have a maintenance mode, but mine is not in maintenance mode. I'm the only person on there right now, and the other people who said they would be staff members haven't been added yet. I have the plug-in where people can change their theme so once everything gets worked out, if they don't like the theme they can get a different one. But I definitely would like to know the accessible ways that would make it more immersive and inclusive. I want it to be as accessible And user-friendly as possible. Right now, I also do not have the banner. I was thinking it should involve the infinity neurodiversity Symbol, and then maybe for the blind portion something like a cane and a guide dog or some braille. But I do not want to put any colors in the banner or do anything to it that would make it less accessible. If red is not accessible, maybe I should not put a cane in the banner because a lot of canes have red and white. But some blind people do not use a cane or a guide dog so they might feel excluded from the banner. But I don't want to do a gross stereotype like an eye or dark glasses. I think some of the icons that it came with by default actually have read, so I might have to go and replace those. I can find lots of icons now, so if braille would be a bad idea, I can find lots of icons already. I haven't put the rules on yet either. The research I did about easy read formats says That you should put a picture that represents what you are saying, and then you put some text. But even though other people in the group might need an easy read format, I don't need an easy read format so it is hard. I also don't know what an easy read format would look like for a totally blind person. I know that for autistic people, they say that visual schedules, if then boards, and things like that are very helpful, but I honestly don't know how you would do that for a totally blind person. A lot of autistic People use visual timers. We were also going to have virtual meetings where we actually talk, but those who use AAC could still chat. So that is why I was even thinking about that as well. I have a Calendar enabled, but other than that, the other things suggested would not work for blind people. The people in the group including me and the other staff members will be neurodivergent and blind. Allies can also join as well. But most blind people are not totally blind. It is going to be a specialized advocacy group.

[Kami]

No, don't remove the icons. I was just saying that there's an easier way to accomplish what you want to do. You're actually thinking a little too hard about this! You don't need to add a lot of bells and whistles to make the forum accessible.

At the end of they day all you really need to have a universally accessible forum are:
- good colour contrast between background colours and text colours
- aesthetically pleasing colours
- alternate text on images
- universally identifiable icons

All the extras -- trying to add braille or pictures of a cane and a service dog and this and that and the other -- it's too much. Less is more, especially in this instance. You want to show people that you're accessible and welcoming of both disabled folks and their allies, and the best way to do that is through a simple design with good content. You don't need the bells and whistles to be attractive to a sighted users, and users reliant on screen readers won't see it anyway.