Hi Twitch! Screen reader users should be able to read and participate actively in chat like everyone else. However, translating chat into an audio signal is really tedious at this moment, because visual elements like all badges incl. subscriber-time of sub badges, and emotes cannot be filtered out.
Especially when a lot of hype is happening in chat, emotes can become very overbearing when read out one by one. Therefore, I'd like to request a feature with which those visual elements and emote text can be filtered out, leaving the username and chat text only for translation into an audio signal. This would highly improve the chat experience for screen reader users.

Thank you so much for considering this.

Accessibility is very important to not only me but also my stream and I'm sure a lot of people feel the same way. It would be amazing if we can get some warning tags for things from Epilepsy to Colorblind viewers. This would not only warn our viewers but can also save a life. The worst thing we want as streamers is to hurt our viewers and have no control over it. These tags and be pre implemented or something we can add given game reviews. These tags can vary and even help those with mental health with warning tags for possible triggering content in a game.

I have a visual disability, and it is ******* my eyes to associate a channel logo to the streamers name.

Prior to the visual update, the channels found on the left side, when collapsed, only shows the logo, but when you mouseover, it expands the channel view and shows all of the streamers name.

How it is now, I either have to expand the channel view, or mouse over each individual streamer to see who it is. Please revert it back to 'expand on mouseover' in collapse mode, rather than 'show info of a single streamer mouse over' in collapse mode.

I have just discovered that for streams containing embedded closed captions (NOT via a Twitch extension), there is no way to display the closed captions when playing the stream on Android or when casting to a Chromecast.

I think it's great that Twitch has added captions support in the first place, but all of it is for nothing if someone who relies on captions is watching on the app or Chromecast.

To be extra clear, I am not talking about caption extensions - those show up in the app, but many streamers use proper embedded captions which seem to only be available in the browser player.

The app really should support displaying captions over the video similar to YouTube, and Chromecast definitely also can show captions so it should be supported there too.

I contacted Twitch support about enabling captions on Android/Chromecast and the only responses I have gotten are links to the help articles about captions and extensions. None of the help articles show how to enable captions on Android or Chromecast, so I have to assume it just isn't supported.

I understand you want to make the platform more accessible for the visually impaired and that's great. I believe the decision to remove accessibility options is moving in the wrong direction. First of all you should add more terms and tags that are inclusive to the visually impaired instead. Secondly the word "Blind" does not ONLY apply to peoples with disabilities. It is basically the only word in the English language that correctly and accurately describes what is going on with the playthrough. The word Blind means - lacking awareness, judgment, or perception. It makes little sense to say you are trying to increase accessibility options by taking them away. I am a person with my own disabilities and all my content was "Blind Playthroughs" and you removed my accessibility to the platform.

Many people think "closed captions" and subtitles are the same; they aren't.

CC denotes who is speaking (for ex: "Albert: I think it's rather nice out!").

Subtitles only show what is being said (for ex: "I think it's rather nice out!").

It might not be a big deal to most, but if you're deaf, this is huge. It's literally the difference between something easy to follow (actual CC) versus realtime subtitles that might not even accurately represent what's being said.

I know streaming isn't movie making, but imagine watching, say, The Witcher with the sound turned off, but with subtitles on. Even better, go do it. You'll notice two things quickly:

1) The irony of having to read lips despite having subtitles - it's the only way to figure out who's saying what (this is just about impossible for most people)

2) Strong physical/emotional reactions to things you can't see - because they're loud noises. Or suspicious noises (footsteps in a dark room, say). If you're deaf, you have no idea what the character is reacting to.

It's not only un-fun, but I've actually watched my sister kind of wither when getting frustrated with subtitles. It's difficult to see that and not say something :/

I'm not complaining. Having live subtitles is a wonderful feature. I know it's an inconvenience because of the [cc] you use to refer to the feature. But it's not [cc], and, though we try not to say anything about it, it really does need to be fixed (renamed).

As a creator, I can't truthfully put [cc] in my title's feed because it can't be [cc]'d by realtime subtitles. That means I can't use the tag. That means the deaf and hard of hearing might not find my content. Like my sister, for example, and the deaf friends I've made along the way from being in her life (which includes a couple gamer friends).

It's also dangerous to leave it as-is because people will eventually think subtitles are "[cc]". It will solidify the confusion between subtitles and closed captioning. Then, in the future, when others speak up about this problem, the argument will be: "But Twitch already has [cc]!!!"

Then the "subtitles aren't closed captioning" argument begins all over.

Please, please, please find a way to accurately represent the subtitle feature. I know the mistake isn't intentional. As a dev, I know how important it is to get accessibility right. I also know twitch is a behemoth to maintain, and that nobody can be everywhere at once to catch everything. Which I suppose is why we have these forums :)

Thank you.