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Using Steam with NVDA: What Works, What Doesn't, and What Valve Should Fix

·8 mins
Gaming Accessibility Steam Nvda Screen-Reader Usability
Table of Contents

I use Steam with NVDA every day. It works, mostly. But “mostly” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

In 2025, Valve added accessibility settings to the Steam desktop client and introduced a built-in screen reader for SteamOS and Big Picture Mode. That’s real progress, and I want to acknowledge it. But the desktop experience that most Windows users rely on still has significant barriers for screen reader users. This post is not a WCAG audit. It’s a report from daily use.

What Works #

Let me start with the positive, because it’s important to acknowledge what Valve got right.

Steam’s main interface is navigable with NVDA. I can arrow through the library, launch games, and manage my account. Clicking on elements generally works. I can usually accomplish what I’m trying to do, sometimes with a bit of work. The fact that Steam is functional at all with a screen reader is more than can be said for many game launchers.

One important note: I navigate with arrow keys, not Tab. Tab only moves to buttons, edit fields, links, and similar form elements. Since most of Steam’s interface is clickables, Tab skips over large portions of the UI. Arrow navigation is the only way to move through everything linearly. This works, but it means I’m reading every element in order rather than jumping to interactive controls.

What Doesn’t Work #

Here’s where the daily experience breaks down.

No Heading Structure #

Steam has almost no heading structure. For an NVDA user, headings are the primary way to navigate a complex interface. Pressing H to jump by heading, or inserting a heading list with NVDA+F7, is how we orient ourselves in a page or app. The library page has one heading for library filters. That’s it. Everywhere else, navigation is linear. You arrow through everything or use object navigation to move around. In a content-rich app like Steam, the absence of headings turns navigation into a slow, linear crawl.

Most interactive elements in Steam are generic clickables rather than proper links or buttons. NVDA announces them as “clickable,” which tells me I can activate them but gives me no semantic information about what they are. A link should be announced as a link. A button should be announced as a button. When everything is “clickable,” I lose the ability to use quick navigation keys (B for buttons, K for links) to move efficiently through the interface.

Popups on Launch #

When Steam launches, popups appear for the friends list and special offers. These popups capture focus and interrupt navigation before I’ve even oriented myself in the main window. For a screen reader user, unexpected focus shifts are disorienting. I have to find and dismiss these popups before I can start doing what I opened Steam to do. A setting to suppress launch popups, or at least to delay them until the main window is focused, would make a meaningful difference.

Unlabeled Window Controls #

The minimize, maximize, and close buttons are unlabeled. NVDA announces them as “clickable” with no indication of what they do. There’s no text, no accessible name, nothing. In an interface where these are the first elements encountered when managing the window, having to guess which clickable closes the app and which one minimizes it is an unnecessary barrier.

Unlabeled Buttons in the Library #

The library page has unlabeled buttons alongside its combo boxes and filter controls. NVDA announces them as “button” with no text describing what they do. In a library where buttons control filtering, sorting, and view options, an unlabeled button is a guess. I can click it and see what happens, but I shouldn’t have to. Every button should have a text label or an aria-label that tells NVDA what it does.

Two Confusing Tables on the Library Page #

The library page contains two tables, both showing my games but in different layouts. One is a table with 1 row and 38 columns. The other is 7 rows and 6 columns. NVDA announces both as tables, but neither is clearly labeled to explain what layout it represents or why there are two of them. For a screen reader user, encountering two unlabeled tables with the same content in different shapes is confusing. Which one should I use? What’s the difference? Without labels or headings to distinguish them, I have to explore both to figure it out.

The menus at the top of the Steam window (Steam, View, Games, Friends, and others) are clickables, not standard menu bar items. They don’t respond to Alt or Alt+letter, which are the standard Windows keyboard shortcuts for opening menus. The only way to open them with a screen reader is to navigate to them and press Space or Enter. The good news is that once a menu opens, NVDA can announce the items inside it as menu items. But getting there requires navigating through clickables to find the menu rather than pressing a single keyboard shortcut.

Store and Community Are Not In the App #

When I click Store or Community in the Steam app, I don’t get an in-app store or community interface. Instead, I get a URL. Clicking the URL or the clickable right under it copies it to my clipboard. There’s no text explaining what to do with this URL, no instruction to open it in a browser. Just a URL sitting there. I’m guessing this means Valve intends for me to visit the store and community sections in my web browser, but nothing in the interface says that. For a screen reader user, encountering an unexplained URL where you expected a page is disorienting. If the store and community are web-only, the app should say so.

Right-Click Context Menus Don’t Work from Keyboard #

Certain actions, such as uninstalling a game from the library, require right-clicking an item to open a context menu. The standard keyboard shortcut for right-click is Shift+F10. In Steam, Shift+F10 does nothing. To access the context menu, I have to route the mouse cursor to the focused element using NVDA’s mouse routing command and then simulate a right-click. This is a workaround that requires technical knowledge of NVDA and adds unnecessary steps to a basic action.

A Pleasant Surprise: Big Picture Mode #

After writing most of this post, I decided to try Big Picture Mode. I wish I’d done this sooner. It’s significantly more accessible than the desktop client.

Big Picture Mode has headings. It has lists. It has buttons that are announced as buttons, not clickables. It has keyboard shortcuts that work. It even has a couple of sound effects that provide useful feedback. The overall structure is more navigable, more predictable, and more screen reader friendly.

I may switch to Big Picture Mode as my default. The fact that Valve’s more accessible interface is the one most Windows users never open is worth noting. If Big Picture Mode is this much better with NVDA, the desktop client should be learning from it, not ignoring it.

What Valve Should Fix #

Based on my daily experience, here are the changes that would have the biggest impact for NVDA users on the desktop client, in order of priority:

  1. Add heading structure. This is the single most impactful change Valve could make. Headings in the library, settings, and account sections would transform navigation from linear scanning to efficient jumping.

  2. Use proper semantic elements. Links should be links. Buttons should be buttons. Menus should be menus, not clickables. “Clickable” is not a semantic role.

  3. Label all controls. Window controls, library buttons, icon-only buttons, and any element that relies on visual context needs a text label that screen readers can announce.

  4. Support standard Windows keyboard shortcuts. Alt for menus, Shift+F10 for context menus. These are Windows conventions. Steam should follow them.

  5. Suppress or delay launch popups. Let screen reader users orient in the main window before presenting secondary content.

  6. Label the library tables. If there are two tables showing games in different layouts, label them so screen reader users know which is which and what the difference is.

  7. Explain the store and community URLs. If these sections are web-only, say so. Don’t just drop a URL with no context.

  8. Bring Big Picture Mode’s accessibility to the desktop client. Big Picture Mode proves Valve can build an accessible Steam interface. The desktop client should inherit those patterns.

Why This Matters #

Steam is the primary PC gaming platform for millions of players. Valve has made real accessibility progress in 2025, and Big Picture Mode shows they can do better. But the desktop client, which is what most Windows users rely on, still has fundamental barriers that make daily use harder than it needs to be.

I’m not writing this to complain. I’m writing it because I use Steam every day, and I want it to be better. I want to browse my library without arrowing through unlabeled tables. I want to uninstall a game without routing my mouse. I want to open a menu with Alt like every other Windows app. And I want the desktop client to be as accessible as Big Picture Mode already is.

Valve is clearly thinking about accessibility. The 2025 updates and Big Picture Mode prove that. This post is feedback, not criticism. Here’s what’s still broken from where I sit.