1. nvda@nvda.groups.io
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Strategies for navigating YouTube comments using NVDA?

Luke Robinett
 

Hi folks,

 

I find navigating the YouTube comments section on the desktop site using my Windows machine to be cumbersome. First, getting to the comments section itself can be a chore. It sits under a level 2 heading but pressing “2” in browse mode sometimes reports no heading at level 2 and other times it takes you there as expected. Sometimes it helps to go to the end of the page and then press shift “2,” but even this seems hit-or-miss.

Once you’ve made your way into the comments section, there doesn’t seem to be any easy way to quickly move from one comment/reply to the next. Just pressing control and down arrow to move through elements takes a long time because each comment has numerous elements – screen name, timestamp, comment itself, any links or hashtags they may have included, like button, dislike button, reply button and so on. On the iOS YouTube app using VoiceOver, each comment is treated as a single object and you can use the rotar to interact with it, but there doesn’t seem to be anything resembling that behavior with NVDA.

I pressed question mark to get Google’s list of keyboard shortcuts for YouTube but they’re all mostly related to controlling video playback. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions?

 

Thanks,

Luke

 
Chris Smart
 

I tend to hit E to jump to the edit field where you would contribute your own comment, and then Down Arrow quickly from there.


On 2020-12-31 2:30 p.m., Luke Robinett wrote:

Hi folks,

 

I find navigating the YouTube comments section on the desktop site using my Windows machine to be cumbersome. First, getting to the comments section itself can be a chore. It sits under a level 2 heading but pressing “2” in browse mode sometimes reports no heading at level 2 and other times it takes you there as expected. Sometimes it helps to go to the end of the page and then press shift “2,” but even this seems hit-or-miss.

Once you’ve made your way into the comments section, there doesn’t seem to be any easy way to quickly move from one comment/reply to the next. Just pressing control and down arrow to move through elements takes a long time because each comment has numerous elements – screen name, timestamp, comment itself, any links or hashtags they may have included, like button, dislike button, reply button and so on. On the iOS YouTube app using VoiceOver, each comment is treated as a single object and you can use the rotar to interact with it, but there doesn’t seem to be anything resembling that behavior with NVDA.

I pressed question mark to get Google’s list of keyboard shortcuts for YouTube but they’re all mostly related to controlling video playback. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions?

 

Thanks,

Luke

 
Luke Robinett
 

Hi Chris,

 

Yeah, that works too. There’s still the issue of having to wade through numerous UI elements for each post, though. As you hit down arrow you’ll notice it doesn’t take you from post to post but rather through all those many elements of the post. The more I think about this, the more I think the only solution is probably on Google’s end. They could do something similar to what Reddit has done – press K for the next post, J for the previous, etc. Perhaps I’ll submit YouTube feedback to that end. Still figured it wouldn’t hurt to see what the bright folks of this list might have to say, though. J

 

Thanks,

Luke

 

 

From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Chris Smart
Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2020 11:32 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Strategies for navigating YouTube comments using NVDA?

 

I tend to hit E to jump to the edit field where you would contribute your own comment, and then Down Arrow quickly from there.

 

On 2020-12-31 2:30 p.m., Luke Robinett wrote:

Hi folks,

 

I find navigating the YouTube comments section on the desktop site using my Windows machine to be cumbersome. First, getting to the comments section itself can be a chore. It sits under a level 2 heading but pressing “2” in browse mode sometimes reports no heading at level 2 and other times it takes you there as expected. Sometimes it helps to go to the end of the page and then press shift “2,” but even this seems hit-or-miss.

Once you’ve made your way into the comments section, there doesn’t seem to be any easy way to quickly move from one comment/reply to the next. Just pressing control and down arrow to move through elements takes a long time because each comment has numerous elements – screen name, timestamp, comment itself, any links or hashtags they may have included, like button, dislike button, reply button and so on. On the iOS YouTube app using VoiceOver, each comment is treated as a single object and you can use the rotar to interact with it, but there doesn’t seem to be anything resembling that behavior with NVDA.

I pressed question mark to get Google’s list of keyboard shortcuts for YouTube but they’re all mostly related to controlling video playback. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions?

 

Thanks,

Luke

 
Gene
 

I'd have to look at the comments section for a few videos but one reason you may be having problems is that increasingly, sites change as you move through them. This is to accommodate mobile devices. The whole page isn't shown, but parts of it are and those parts change as you move through the page. On The New York Times home page, for example, a section called something like other news isn't shown when you are at the top of the page. If I move to something close to where that section would be, to a feature called editor's picks, then move down, by headings since that is the convenient way to move through stories and sections on the site, the other news section opens as I move to it and I can move through it and see that it is there.
That may be happening with the comments section on Youtube.

When you get to the comments section, look above it. What is above it. Is there an item you can conveniently move to or use the search of your screen-reader to move to? If so, and if it is shown on the page when you are at the top, in other words you don't have to have it open as you move down, you can move to it then continue to move and be in the comments section. I'll add that I'm not sure if the comments section will open immediately. You may have to move back to where you were than wait a moment and move down again, just as you may have to on The Times site.

Maybe this is a good system for sighted users, I don't know. It isn't for blind people since you don't know if you are missing part of a page unless you move through it in some way, from article to article, for example. If you find what you want without doing so, that's fine. But you may miss content you might be interested in on an unfamiliar page and not even know that it is available.

As far as moving from comment to comment, once in the section, when you come to the end of a comment, is there an item that is repeated at the end of every comment that will allow you to move from comment to comment by doing an initial search then using the repeat search command if you want to skip to the next comment. The search command is one of the most powerful and least used methods of web navigation by blind people. I suspect that one reason for this is that it isn't taught thoroughly in a lot of training material.

Gene

-----Original Message-----
From: Luke Robinett
Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2020 1:30 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: [nvda] Strategies for navigating YouTube comments using NVDA?



Hi folks,



I find navigating the YouTube comments section on the desktop site using my Windows machine to be cumbersome. First, getting to the comments section itself can be a chore. It sits under a level 2 heading but pressing “2” in browse mode sometimes reports no heading at level 2 and other times it takes you there as expected. Sometimes it helps to go to the end of the page and then press shift “2,” but even this seems hit-or-miss.

Once you’ve made your way into the comments section, there doesn’t seem to be any easy way to quickly move from one comment/reply to the next. Just pressing control and down arrow to move through elements takes a long time because each comment has numerous elements – screen name, timestamp, comment itself, any links or hashtags they may have included, like button, dislike button, reply button and so on. On the iOS YouTube app using VoiceOver, each comment is treated as a single object and you can use the rotar to interact with it, but there doesn’t seem to be anything resembling that behavior with NVDA.

I pressed question mark to get Google’s list of keyboard shortcuts for YouTube but they’re all mostly related to controlling video playback. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions?



Thanks,

Luke
Luke Robinett
 

Hi Gene,

That makes sense that content may be getting dynamically hidden or displayed based on the user's device or position within the site. Good hypothesis! That would explain the seemingly sporadic nature of whether or not I can find the comments section.
As for moving through the comments, that's a good idea about finding something I can search for that is common to each comment. I generally try to use a similar strategy in forums or other feeds by finding an element, be it a button, link, graphic or certain heading, that is common to each post, but unfortunately each YouTube post contains multiple links, UI elements and no headings so that doesn't work so well. I'll try what you suggested and report back. :)
I've also emailed the Google Accessibility team with the suggestion of providing keyboard shortcuts for easy single-key traversal of comments similar to what Reddit has done.

Thanks,
Luke

-----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Gene
Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2020 11:48 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Strategies for navigating YouTube comments using NVDA?

I'd have to look at the comments section for a few videos but one reason you may be having problems is that increasingly, sites change as you move through them. This is to accommodate mobile devices. The whole page isn't shown, but parts of it are and those parts change as you move through the page. On The New York Times home page, for example, a section called something like other news isn't shown when you are at the top of the page.
If I move to something close to where that section would be, to a feature called editor's picks, then move down, by headings since that is the convenient way to move through stories and sections on the site, the other news section opens as I move to it and I can move through it and see that it is there.
That may be happening with the comments section on Youtube.

When you get to the comments section, look above it. What is above it. Is there an item you can conveniently move to or use the search of your screen-reader to move to? If so, and if it is shown on the page when you are at the top, in other words you don't have to have it open as you move down, you can move to it then continue to move and be in the comments section. I'll add that I'm not sure if the comments section will open immediately. You may have to move back to where you were than wait a moment and move down again, just as you may have to on The Times site.

Maybe this is a good system for sighted users, I don't know. It isn't for blind people since you don't know if you are missing part of a page unless you move through it in some way, from article to article, for example. If you find what you want without doing so, that's fine. But you may miss content you might be interested in on an unfamiliar page and not even know that it is available.

As far as moving from comment to comment, once in the section, when you come to the end of a comment, is there an item that is repeated at the end of every comment that will allow you to move from comment to comment by doing an initial search then using the repeat search command if you want to skip to the next comment. The search command is one of the most powerful and least used methods of web navigation by blind people. I suspect that one reason for this is that it isn't taught thoroughly in a lot of training material.

Gene

-----Original Message-----
From: Luke Robinett
Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2020 1:30 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: [nvda] Strategies for navigating YouTube comments using NVDA?



Hi folks,



I find navigating the YouTube comments section on the desktop site using my
Windows machine to be cumbersome. First, getting to the comments section
itself can be a chore. It sits under a level 2 heading but pressing “2” in
browse mode sometimes reports no heading at level 2 and other times it takes
you there as expected. Sometimes it helps to go to the end of the page and
then press shift “2,” but even this seems hit-or-miss.

Once you’ve made your way into the comments section, there doesn’t seem to
be any easy way to quickly move from one comment/reply to the next. Just
pressing control and down arrow to move through elements takes a long time
because each comment has numerous elements – screen name, timestamp, comment
itself, any links or hashtags they may have included, like button, dislike
button, reply button and so on. On the iOS YouTube app using VoiceOver, each
comment is treated as a single object and you can use the rotar to interact
with it, but there doesn’t seem to be anything resembling that behavior with
NVDA.

I pressed question mark to get Google’s list of keyboard shortcuts for
YouTube but they’re all mostly related to controlling video playback. Does
anyone have any tips or suggestions?



Thanks,

Luke
David Csercsics
 

I'd also like to point out that the comment system for Reddit seems to be a bit broken at least with firefox, since pressing j and k doesn't automatically read the focused comment, though it does seem to move you there.

 I'm not sure how this would work for Youtube either, because several of the letters are already used for video playback controls.
Luke Robinett
 

Right, the Reddit system isn't perfect but at least it's there. Agreed they would need to use different keys since J and K are assigned to video playback functions.

-----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of David Csercsics
Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2020 12:17 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Strategies for navigating YouTube comments using NVDA?

I'd also like to point out that the comment system for Reddit seems to be a bit broken at least with firefox, since pressing j and k doesn't automatically read the focused comment, though it does seem to move you there.

I'm not sure how this would work for Youtube either, because several of the letters are already used for video playback controls.
Gene
 

I've tried this on two pages. You can see if it works consistently.
From the top of the page, search for the word more. You may have to search twice to get to the word more that's immediately above the start of the comments section. I believe its part of a button that says more actions. You can see.
Once you start reading comments, search for the word view to be immediately above the next comment. At times, there is material below the word view that isn't the next comment. I haven't looked at it to be sure what it is. I think it may have to do with viewing a series of comments in a thread that that comment started. If so, I believe searching for view again will take you to the next main comment.

Gene

-----Original Message-----
From: Gene
Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2020 1:48 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Strategies for navigating YouTube comments using NVDA?

I'd have to look at the comments section for a few videos but one reason you
may be having problems is that increasingly, sites change as you move
through them. This is to accommodate mobile devices. The whole page isn't
shown, but parts of it are and those parts change as you move through the
page. On The New York Times home page, for example, a section called
something like other news isn't shown when you are at the top of the page.
If I move to something close to where that section would be, to a feature
called editor's picks, then move down, by headings since that is the
convenient way to move through stories and sections on the site, the other
news section opens as I move to it and I can move through it and see that it
is there.
That may be happening with the comments section on Youtube.

When you get to the comments section, look above it. What is above it. Is
there an item you can conveniently move to or use the search of your
screen-reader to move to? If so, and if it is shown on the page when you
are at the top, in other words you don't have to have it open as you move
down, you can move to it then continue to move and be in the comments
section. I'll add that I'm not sure if the comments section will open
immediately. You may have to move back to where you were than wait a moment
and move down again, just as you may have to on The Times site.

Maybe this is a good system for sighted users, I don't know. It isn't for
blind people since you don't know if you are missing part of a page unless
you move through it in some way, from article to article, for example. If
you find what you want without doing so, that's fine. But you may miss
content you might be interested in on an unfamiliar page and not even know
that it is available.

As far as moving from comment to comment, once in the section, when you come
to the end of a comment, is there an item that is repeated at the end of
every comment that will allow you to move from comment to comment by doing
an initial search then using the repeat search command if you want to skip
to the next comment. The search command is one of the most powerful and
least used methods of web navigation by blind people. I suspect that one
reason for this is that it isn't taught thoroughly in a lot of training
material.

Gene

-----Original Message-----
From: Luke Robinett
Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2020 1:30 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: [nvda] Strategies for navigating YouTube comments using NVDA?



Hi folks,



I find navigating the YouTube comments section on the desktop site using my
Windows machine to be cumbersome. First, getting to the comments section
itself can be a chore. It sits under a level 2 heading but pressing “2” in
browse mode sometimes reports no heading at level 2 and other times it takes
you there as expected. Sometimes it helps to go to the end of the page and
then press shift “2,” but even this seems hit-or-miss.

Once you’ve made your way into the comments section, there doesn’t seem to
be any easy way to quickly move from one comment/reply to the next. Just
pressing control and down arrow to move through elements takes a long time
because each comment has numerous elements – screen name, timestamp, comment
itself, any links or hashtags they may have included, like button, dislike
button, reply button and so on. On the iOS YouTube app using VoiceOver, each
comment is treated as a single object and you can use the rotar to interact
with it, but there doesn’t seem to be anything resembling that behavior with
NVDA.

I pressed question mark to get Google’s list of keyboard shortcuts for
YouTube but they’re all mostly related to controlling video playback. Does
anyone have any tips or suggestions?



Thanks,

Luke
JM Casey
 

Hi.

Yes, you often have to scroll down in order for the comments to become visible. Until you do that, quick navigation to find the edit field for instance won't work, nor will searching for a word like "comment" using the find command.

Also it is possible for video uploaders to turn comments off.

-----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Luke Robinett
Sent: December 31, 2020 02:59 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Strategies for navigating YouTube comments using NVDA?

Hi Gene,

That makes sense that content may be getting dynamically hidden or displayed based on the user's device or position within the site. Good hypothesis! That would explain the seemingly sporadic nature of whether or not I can find the comments section.
As for moving through the comments, that's a good idea about finding something I can search for that is common to each comment. I generally try to use a similar strategy in forums or other feeds by finding an element, be it a button, link, graphic or certain heading, that is common to each post, but unfortunately each YouTube post contains multiple links, UI elements and no headings so that doesn't work so well. I'll try what you suggested and report back. :) I've also emailed the Google Accessibility team with the suggestion of providing keyboard shortcuts for easy single-key traversal of comments similar to what Reddit has done.

Thanks,
Luke


-----Original Message-----
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Gene
Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2020 11:48 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Strategies for navigating YouTube comments using NVDA?

I'd have to look at the comments section for a few videos but one reason you may be having problems is that increasingly, sites change as you move through them. This is to accommodate mobile devices. The whole page isn't shown, but parts of it are and those parts change as you move through the page. On The New York Times home page, for example, a section called something like other news isn't shown when you are at the top of the page.
If I move to something close to where that section would be, to a feature called editor's picks, then move down, by headings since that is the convenient way to move through stories and sections on the site, the other news section opens as I move to it and I can move through it and see that it is there.
That may be happening with the comments section on Youtube.

When you get to the comments section, look above it. What is above it. Is there an item you can conveniently move to or use the search of your screen-reader to move to? If so, and if it is shown on the page when you are at the top, in other words you don't have to have it open as you move down, you can move to it then continue to move and be in the comments section. I'll add that I'm not sure if the comments section will open immediately. You may have to move back to where you were than wait a moment and move down again, just as you may have to on The Times site.

Maybe this is a good system for sighted users, I don't know. It isn't for blind people since you don't know if you are missing part of a page unless you move through it in some way, from article to article, for example. If you find what you want without doing so, that's fine. But you may miss content you might be interested in on an unfamiliar page and not even know that it is available.

As far as moving from comment to comment, once in the section, when you come to the end of a comment, is there an item that is repeated at the end of every comment that will allow you to move from comment to comment by doing an initial search then using the repeat search command if you want to skip to the next comment. The search command is one of the most powerful and least used methods of web navigation by blind people. I suspect that one reason for this is that it isn't taught thoroughly in a lot of training material.

Gene

-----Original Message-----
From: Luke Robinett
Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2020 1:30 PM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: [nvda] Strategies for navigating YouTube comments using NVDA?



Hi folks,



I find navigating the YouTube comments section on the desktop site using my Windows machine to be cumbersome. First, getting to the comments section itself can be a chore. It sits under a level 2 heading but pressing “2” in browse mode sometimes reports no heading at level 2 and other times it takes you there as expected. Sometimes it helps to go to the end of the page and then press shift “2,” but even this seems hit-or-miss.

Once you’ve made your way into the comments section, there doesn’t seem to be any easy way to quickly move from one comment/reply to the next. Just pressing control and down arrow to move through elements takes a long time because each comment has numerous elements – screen name, timestamp, comment itself, any links or hashtags they may have included, like button, dislike button, reply button and so on. On the iOS YouTube app using VoiceOver, each comment is treated as a single object and you can use the rotar to interact with it, but there doesn’t seem to be anything resembling that behavior with NVDA.

I pressed question mark to get Google’s list of keyboard shortcuts for YouTube but they’re all mostly related to controlling video playback. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions?



Thanks,

Luke
Sarah k Alawami
 

I don't use youtube anymore, but perhaps suggest regions for each marker. The aria implementation would get a bit annoying if you arrowed, but I personally would like it this way.

--

Sarah Alawami, owner of TFFP. . For more info go to our website.

Check out my adventures with a shadow machine.

to subscribe to the feed click here and you can also follow us on twitter

Our discord is where you will know when we go live on twitch. Feel free to give the channel a follow and see what is up there.

For stream archives, products you can buy and more visit my main lbry page and my tffp lbry page You will also be able to buy some of my products and eBooks there.

Finally, to become a patron and help support the podcast go here

On 31 Dec 2020, at 11:46, Luke Robinett wrote:

Hi Chris,

 

Yeah, that works too. There’s still the issue of having to wade through numerous UI elements for each post, though. As you hit down arrow you’ll notice it doesn’t take you from post to post but rather through all those many elements of the post. The more I think about this, the more I think the only solution is probably on Google’s end. They could do something similar to what Reddit has done – press K for the next post, J for the previous, etc. Perhaps I’ll submit YouTube feedback to that end. Still figured it wouldn’t hurt to see what the bright folks of this list might have to say, though. J

 

Thanks,

Luke

 

 

From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Chris Smart
Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2020 11:32 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Strategies for navigating YouTube comments using NVDA?

 

I tend to hit E to jump to the edit field where you would contribute your own comment, and then Down Arrow quickly from there.

 

On 2020-12-31 2:30 p.m., Luke Robinett wrote:

Hi folks,

 

I find navigating the YouTube comments section on the desktop site using my Windows machine to be cumbersome. First, getting to the comments section itself can be a chore. It sits under a level 2 heading but pressing “2” in browse mode sometimes reports no heading at level 2 and other times it takes you there as expected. Sometimes it helps to go to the end of the page and then press shift “2,” but even this seems hit-or-miss.

Once you’ve made your way into the comments section, there doesn’t seem to be any easy way to quickly move from one comment/reply to the next. Just pressing control and down arrow to move through elements takes a long time because each comment has numerous elements – screen name, timestamp, comment itself, any links or hashtags they may have included, like button, dislike button, reply button and so on. On the iOS YouTube app using VoiceOver, each comment is treated as a single object and you can use the rotar to interact with it, but there doesn’t seem to be anything resembling that behavior with NVDA.

I pressed question mark to get Google’s list of keyboard shortcuts for YouTube but they’re all mostly related to controlling video playback. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions?

 

Thanks,

Luke

 
Tony Malykh
 

Try my BrowserNav add-on!
https://github.com/mltony/nvda-browser-nav/releases/download/v1.12/browsernav-1.12.nvda-addon
First, you can press backslash to scroll to all elements of the page. Youtube page seems to load dynamically as the user scrolls down, which works well for sighted users, but not so well for screenreader users. Backslash gesture allows to scroll to all the elemnts forward, thus autoexpanding them. Then Press 2 and it'll take you right to comments section.
Second, in order to navigate from one comment to another, you can press NVDA+Alt+Up/Down keys. It will take much less keystrokes to get from one comment to another. This will only take you to comments of the same level.
Another option is to adjust BrowserNav rotor by pressing NVDA+O to navigate by font size plus same style.. This way you can jump from one comment to another with a single key stroke (same one, NVDA+Alt+Up/Down), but it will ignore the level of comment, e.g. it will jump to all levels.
Same strategy works well to navigate on reddit pages.
HTH
--Tony

.

------ Original Message ------
From: "Sarah k Alawami" <marrie12@...>
Sent: 12/31/2020 2:59:51 PM
Subject: Re: [nvda] Strategies for navigating YouTube comments using NVDA?

I don't use youtube anymore, but perhaps suggest regions for each marker. The aria implementation would get a bit annoying if you arrowed, but I personally would like it this way.

--

Sarah Alawami, owner of TFFP. . For more info go to our website.

Check out my adventures with a shadow machine.

to subscribe to the feed click here and you can also follow us on twitter

Our discord is where you will know when we go live on twitch. Feel free to give the channel a follow and see what is up there.

For stream archives, products you can buy and more visit my main lbry page and my tffp lbry page You will also be able to buy some of my products and eBooks there.

Finally, to become a patron and help support the podcast go here

On 31 Dec 2020, at 11:46, Luke Robinett wrote:

Hi Chris,

 

Yeah, that works too. There’s still the issue of having to wade through numerous UI elements for each post, though. As you hit down arrow you’ll notice it doesn’t take you from post to post but rather through all those many elements of the post. The more I think about this, the more I think the only solution is probably on Google’s end. They could do something similar to what Reddit has done – press K for the next post, J for the previous, etc. Perhaps I’ll submit YouTube feedback to that end. Still figured it wouldn’t hurt to see what the bright folks of this list might have to say, though. J

 

Thanks,

Luke

 

 

From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Chris Smart
Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2020 11:32 AM
To: nvda@nvda.groups.io
Subject: Re: [nvda] Strategies for navigating YouTube comments using NVDA?

 

I tend to hit E to jump to the edit field where you would contribute your own comment, and then Down Arrow quickly from there.

 

On 2020-12-31 2:30 p.m., Luke Robinett wrote:

Hi folks,

 

I find navigating the YouTube comments section on the desktop site using my Windows machine to be cumbersome. First, getting to the comments section itself can be a chore. It sits under a level 2 heading but pressing “2” in browse mode sometimes reports no heading at level 2 and other times it takes you there as expected. Sometimes it helps to go to the end of the page and then press shift “2,” but even this seems hit-or-miss.

Once you’ve made your way into the comments section, there doesn’t seem to be any easy way to quickly move from one comment/reply to the next. Just pressing control and down arrow to move through elements takes a long time because each comment has numerous elements – screen name, timestamp, comment itself, any links or hashtags they may have included, like button, dislike button, reply button and so on. On the iOS YouTube app using VoiceOver, each comment is treated as a single object and you can use the rotar to interact with it, but there doesn’t seem to be anything resembling that behavior with NVDA.

I pressed question mark to get Google’s list of keyboard shortcuts for YouTube but they’re all mostly related to controlling video playback. Does anyone have any tips or suggestions?

 

Thanks,

Luke

 
Sascha Cowley
 

Comments are only loaded when you scroll down the page past the video description. Usually, I just rapidly scroll down the page, wait a couple of seconds, then the comments section will be there.
As for navigating comments, I typically use [e] to navigate to the edit field to add your own comment, then use [g] to navigate to each comment, as each begins with a profile picture.
Luke Robinett
 

Thanks for all the great ideas, folks. Turns out I’m already doing a combination of most of these things but did pick up a few tips and tricks. Tony, that plug-in sounds awesome! I will definitely grab that and see if it helps. I found that if I press control end to go to the very bottom of the page and then press shift 2 a couple of times I will find the comments section pretty consistently since it is under a level two heading. Of the two issues I originally brought up, I’d say traversing between the comments is the most annoying. Even if you press G to go to the profile image of each user, there are still numerous elements you have to move pass to get to the actual text of the comment. Thanks again and keep the ideas coming. I’ve already submitted The feedback to Google as I mentioned so hopefully that will help. In the scheme of things I know this isn’t like a critical issue or anything, but I am a big fan of reading and interacting with comments on topics that interest me so it would be nice if that could be made a little easier. :)

On Dec 31, 2020, at 6:08 PM, Sascha Cowley via groups.io <sascha.camille@...> wrote:

Comments are only loaded when you scroll down the page past the video description. Usually, I just rapidly scroll down the page, wait a couple of seconds, then the comments section will be there.
As for navigating comments, I typically use [e] to navigate to the edit field to add your own comment, then use [g] to navigate to each comment, as each begins with a profile picture.

Luke Robinett
 

Hi folks,
Just thought I would drop a quick update because I just heard back from the Google accessibility team about this. Sounds like they are going to take the feedback to heart to add dedicated shortcut keys to traverse the comment section, but they reminded me of a useful technique that may or may not have gotten mentioned in this thread. I always forget about the N key when in browse mode, which skips over links and takes you to the next ordinary text. This actually works really well for getting to the comments themselves and bypassing all the sender/timestamp info.

On Jan 6, 2021, at 3:04 PM, Luke Robinett via groups.io <blindgroupsluke@...> wrote:


Thanks for all the great ideas, folks. Turns out I’m already doing a combination of most of these things but did pick up a few tips and tricks. Tony, that plug-in sounds awesome! I will definitely grab that and see if it helps. I found that if I press control end to go to the very bottom of the page and then press shift 2 a couple of times I will find the comments section pretty consistently since it is under a level two heading. Of the two issues I originally brought up, I’d say traversing between the comments is the most annoying. Even if you press G to go to the profile image of each user, there are still numerous elements you have to move pass to get to the actual text of the comment. Thanks again and keep the ideas coming. I’ve already submitted The feedback to Google as I mentioned so hopefully that will help. In the scheme of things I know this isn’t like a critical issue or anything, but I am a big fan of reading and interacting with comments on topics that interest me so it would be nice if that could be made a little easier. :)

On Dec 31, 2020, at 6:08 PM, Sascha Cowley via groups.io <sascha.camille@...> wrote:

Comments are only loaded when you scroll down the page past the video description. Usually, I just rapidly scroll down the page, wait a couple of seconds, then the comments section will be there.
As for navigating comments, I typically use [e] to navigate to the edit field to add your own comment, then use [g] to navigate to each comment, as each begins with a profile picture.

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