I am a visually impaired screen reader user and recently purchased a few Waves plugins on Mac OS.
For the most part, I am able to use the plugins because of a pretty extensive set of automated parameters exposed in the DAW host. However…
I am generally not able to use a very important toolbar that appears at the top of each Waves plugin UI. The toolbar’s controls cannot be accessed by keyboard and do not provide any information to screen readers, i.e. names of buttons, popup menus, etc. This means that I am not able to switch between setups, save presets, access plugin preferences or even view the “about” dialog.
Of course, it would be ideal if the rest of the plugin window was made screen reader friendly, but I guess this would make another feature request?
It would be really awesome if Waves developers could find a cycle or two in their development process and attempted to address the mentioned-above issues. I understand that plugins use some sort of a common UI framework, so hopefully the accessibility problems can be solved on a holistic level. A handful of other plugin companies solved their accessibility issues by using the JUCE framework, but I do not know if this is an option for Waves though.
I hope this will be read by the Waves team and addressed soon!
Thank you!
Vic
Their UI’s will upsize to 200%, but thats still not helpful to many visually impaired people. Although Waves uses their own WPAPI framework I think your request sounds reasonable.
You could also try lodging a request via their support page…
Thanks for your answer.
Not sure how much Waves cares about accessibility, but I am definitely willing to try and file a request!
Thanks for your advice!
Thank you for the feedback and suggestion, We are aware of the importance of such accessibility features to our clients, and always look to add and implement additional support to facilitate the usage of our software.
This feature should be implemented in the future; however, there is no ETA we can currently provide.
In the meantime, until such functionality is available, If you need any assistance or further information, do not hesitate to Contact Technical Support directly, They will be able to remote into your computer and perform the necessary steps for you when needed.
Hi.
Coming back to this thread almost year-and-a-half later after having upgraded some of my plugins to version 15.
Despite the statement above, I don’t think anything has changed in the Waves UI to suggest any kind of accessibility improvements. THis is really quite sad and, certainly, will stop me from upgrading my existing plugins or buying any new ones until accessibility is resolved.
If there is a way to change preferences for Waves plugins by modifying a text, JSon, XML, or any other human-readable format, I will accept this as an alternative. As I pointed out above, currently there seems to be no way to modify the preferences for screen reader users.
Here is an example: I would like to stop the Waves head tracker window from coming up every time I insert a Waves plugin on a track in my DAW (Reaper). How can I stop Waves from doing that? I was not able to locate any preferences file where I could change the setting.
I have personally forwarded your feedback to the relevant personnel.
I do see you created a support case to solve the head tracker behavior you mentioned. One of our technical support representatives will soon reach out to further assist you and schedule a session.
Please let us know how it went, and thank you again for sharing your feedback.
Thanks, I appreciate the help. However, this does not help fix the underlying issue, namely that Waves UI remains to be inaccessible for visually impaired users of Waves plugins. Does this mean I have to have a customer representative call every time I change my machine or restore from a backup or make any other change?
This creates an unnecessary dependence on other people.
I think that the Waves team could spend their valuable time on introducing an accessible alternative instead.
Please pass this feedback along as well. I would really appreciate it.
Vic
