Accessibility Support
"Our mission is to make chess universally accessible. By utilizing telephone networks and natural speech interfaces, we provide a screen-free, keyboard-free, and barrier-free way to play chess."
Why Phone-First Beats Screen-Readers-on-Grids
Traditional digital chess interfaces rely on complex two-dimensional grids that are notoriously difficult to navigate using standard screen readers. Finding squares, understanding coordinate paths, tracking piece coordinates, and maintaining spatial awareness on a grid requires screen-reader users to execute dozens of keystrokes per turn.
ChessNow bypasses the screen entirely. By shifting the game to a voice-controlled telephone hotline, players can converse with our chess engine, Thara, as if playing against a sighted companion at a physical table. Spoken coordinates and pieces are parsed directly, and the game state is dictated back in clear, natural speech.
Voice Command Reference
You can say any of the following commands when playing a game over the phone hotline:
| Command Type | What to Say (Examples) | Hotline Response / Action |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Moves | "E 4", "Knight to F 3", "D 2 to D 4", "Bishop takes C 4" |
Validates and plays the move. If it is ambiguous, asks which piece you meant. |
| Castling | "Castle kingside", "Castle queenside", "Short castle" |
Executes kingside or queenside castling if legally permitted. |
| Pawn Promotion | "Queen", "Rook", "Bishop", "Knight" |
Spoken during the promotion prompt to choose your promoted piece. |
| Board Queries | "Repeat position", "Read the board", "My pieces" |
Lists all of your active pieces on the board ordered by value (K, Q, R, B, N, pawns). |
| Opponent Pieces | "Opponent's pieces", "Your pieces" |
Lists all of the bot's (or opponent's) active pieces on the board. |
| Square Check | "What's on E 4?", "What is on F 3?" |
Responds with the piece type and color on that square, or "empty". |
| Last Move | "Last move", "Previous move", "What did you play?" |
Repeats the last move played on the board (e.g. "White played Knight to F3"). |
| Game Status | "Whose turn", "Status", "Score", "Material" |
Responds with whose turn it is, current move number, and material differences. |
| Control Commands | "Resign", "Draw", "Takeback", "Undo" |
Resigns, offers a draw, or takes back the last two half-moves (bot games only). |
| Help Menu | "Help", "Commands", "What can I say?" |
Plays a short spoken summary of valid commands. |
DTMF Keypad Fallbacks
If you are playing in a noisy environment or prefer using your phone's physical keypad, you can press the following keys at any point during a game:
- Press 1 to Resign the game.
- Press 2 to Offer a Draw.
- Press 3 to Request a Takeback (undo).
Tips for Screen Reader Users on the Companion Website
If you use a screen reader (such as JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, or TalkBack) to browse our companion web dashboard, please keep the following tips in mind:
- Keyboard Navigation: Press
Tabimmediately after the page loads to access the "Skip to main content" link, which bypasses the header navigation and lands you directly on the play/analysis forms. - Live Announcements: We use
aria-live="polite"containers for the WebRTC browser phone. When calling Thara, status transitions (e.g., "Dialing...", "Connected", "Opponent moved") and transcribed speech results are automatically spoken by your screen reader. - Focus Indicators: Custom high-contrast gold outlines are visible on focusable elements to assist users with low vision.
Community & Feedback
ChessNow is built with and for the blind chess community. We are committed to achieving full compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standards.
If you have feature suggestions, bug reports, or feedback regarding hotline accessibility, please get in touch with our team at accessibility@chessnow.app.