I am seriously excited! Just the other day, I opened up the settings in OBS Studio and noticed that there is now an accessibility tab! Woo-hoo!
I’m not entirely sure when this was added, but it is a very welcome addition to the powerful broadcasting and recording program. Currently, this accessibility tab has the ability to enable or disable the new OBS Color Blind Mode, but I hope to see more features added in the future. Without further ado, let’s get into it!
Table of Contents
Steps to Enable OBS Color Blind Mode
To Enable OBS’s new color blind mode:
- Left-Click on Settings within the Controls Dock
- Select the Accessibility tab in the left menu
- Left-Click on the Use Different Colors Checkbox
- In the Color Preset dropdown, select Color Blind Alternative
- Left-Click Apply at the bottom right of the window
As of right now, there are two presets available to choose from, and one custom color profile:
- Default (The colors we are all used to)
- Color Blind Alternative
- and Custom
I’m honestly not sure which form of color blindness the preset accommodates, given that there are several forms of color blindness, but I assume it is the most common one. For those of you with the rarer variants of color blindness, you can create a custom color profile that suits your needs, and it will save upon clicking apply at the end.
The Benefits of Accessibility for Everyone
Because OBS supports this color-swapping feature, everyone can benefit from custom colors for their sound mixer and source borders.
Like Hot pink, royal purple, and gold? Swap to those colors!
More of a Metalhead who likes to paint things black? Go with a monochromatic theme of greys and blacks!
Really like the color Blue and Orange like me? Embrace it!
The addition of OBS color blind mode has increased the customization capabilities of the program, allowing you to make it your own. Big thumbs up to the OBS Dev Team! I’m going to leave a link to the contribution page here as thanks for this feature – If you want to support the future development of the OBS Project. (Completely optional!)
Want to know more about OBS Studio?
Check out the articles I’ve written about it!
Accessibility Features I’d Like to See in the Future
The addition of color-blind accessibility is a great first step, and I’m in love with the fact that unlocked sources now display lines that measure to the end of the canvas. For those of us with OCD, those guidelines are a godsend.
But why stop there? Embrace accessibility, and make the world more inclusive! We need more accessibility features!
Specifically, I’d like to see:
- Color Blindness Profiles for the various types of color blindness
- A High-Contrast Theme
- More elements to customize the color within the theme than just the mixer and source border
- A Color Profile Export and import feature
- Support for in-app magnification (ctrl-scroll wheel in google chrome to see what I mean)
- Canvas Source Grid snapping (I use a 10×10 pixel grid on GIMP all the time, grid-snapping is amazing!)
- Dock Locks (You can already lock the docked windows down, but I’d like to see individual lock buttons to make it more intuitive.)
- A list of supported screen readers for blind individuals
This is by no means a complete list of things that they could add to make OBS more accessible, but it is what I could think of off the top of my head. If you have any ideas of what sort of accessibility features you’d like to see, feel free to leave a comment with your suggestion!
Conclusion – It’s About Time
Accessibility is a significant subject to me since I am disabled. Since OBS has added this feature, I have gained a newfound respect for the developers, though it did take some time. With that said, OBS was built on a platform of pre-existing tools, and some features were simply not possible to do until they decided to make the plunge into the newer UI system (UI framework Qt6 upgrade in version 28).
With the loss of support for older operating systems, OBS has gained a slew of new features that brings it closer to the modern standard of accessible design; and I, for one, can’t wait to see what comes next!