Accessibility guide

PyChess can be used with a screen reader and with the keyboard alone. This guide describes what works today. More is on the way, including typing moves and moving pieces with the keyboard.

Finding your way around a page

• The first Tab on every page offers two links: "Skip to main content" and this guide.
• Every page has a navigation landmark (the site menu) and a main landmark. The menu sections are buttons: Enter opens one, Escape closes it.
• Game pages have a level 1 heading naming the game, and level 2 headings for the moves, the game actions and the chat.

The board

The board itself is a picture. Every game, analysis and puzzle page also carries a text summary of it, hidden from sight, with these headings:

• Pieces: for each side, one line per kind of piece with the squares it stands on, for example "rook: a1, h1". Shogi and janggi use their own square names.
• Pockets: in drop variants, how many of each piece are in hand.
• Last move: read out whenever it changes: at once in your own games, at the next pause on analysis and puzzle pages.
• Time: each clock in words. It is not read out as it ticks; go to it whenever you want to know.
• Status: the result of the game, and on puzzle pages whether your move was right. Read out when it changes.

On two-board pages such as bughouse, each board has its own summary, headed "Board A" and "Board B".

Moving through a game

• Left and Right arrow: previous and next move. Up and Down arrow: first and last move. Each step is read out as the last move.
• Press the question mark key to hear all keyboard shortcuts of the page.

Playing and analysing

• Draw, takeback and rematch offers are read out when they arrive, and are answered with Accept and Decline buttons.
• On the analysis board each engine line is a button. Enter plays the line's first move; pressing Enter again follows the line move by move.
• Chat messages are read out as they arrive.
• Making moves on the board with the keyboard is not available yet.