Accessibility of Waves plugin UI for screen reader users

Feature Requests
1

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. :slight_smile:
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? :slight_smile:

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

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2

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…

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3

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!

4

Hi @vtsaran,

Welcome to the Waves Forum.

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.

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