Just added for Global Accessibility Awareness Day are new badges for viewers to identify as audio or video only, so streamers can see those with a limited channel experience. Earlier this year the platform began working with accessibility consultants to review the Creator Stream Manager dashboard on web, mobile apps, and the core UI library to improve accessibility across the board. Watch on YouTube Eurogamer Newscast: Will we subscribe to PlayStation Plus Premium, and how does Xbox cope with the loss of Starfield this year? Other improvements in the works are reducing the time and effort required to navigate the site using a keyboard, and adjustments to ensure the chat is readable with a screen reader. That’s on top of general improvements to design, internal employee training, and conducting qualitative research with external consultancies.
But is this enough? As Twitch streamers told Eurogamer, there are plenty of improvements that need to be made to ensure the platform is more accessible. Uplifting disabled streamers is certainly required. Indeed, streamers have been requesting a Disability Pride Month to highlight disabled streamers, though this is yet to be acknowledged by Twitch. However, Twitch has highlighted a handful of disabled streamers on its Global Accessibility Awareness Day post that details these new changes. Twitch also suggests changes streamers can make to ensure their broadcasts are more accessible. That includes adding closed captions to streams and playing games with subtitles. In addition, streamers should be aware of ableist language used while online.
