Introducing Met Office Weather App; and seeking accessibility feedback and suggestions

By MetOfficeApp, 3 September, 2019

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi Everyone,

I'm the Product Owner for the Met Office weather app.

We've have started investigating how we can improve our app to make it more accessible for blind and low vision users.

The app allows you to see the next 7 day forecast for your location or any favourite location, you can also get notified of any weather warnings in place for your safety. We have map layers and video forecasts to be able to view your forecast in a different way. We also provide extra details like sunrise/sunset, UV and Pollen.

The app is free to download with an ad version or within the app you can pay to remove ads if you wish through the settings menu:
https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/met-office-weather-forecast/id1068146838

To have an accessible app is really important to us and we know there are plenty of things that could be better at. We would really appreciate some feedback on what could be improved. Any feedback is welcome.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks very much,
Sarah

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Comments

By Matthew Whitaker on Thursday, September 5, 2019 - 16:24

First off, thank you so much for taking on the task of making your app accessible. Apple has a screen reader built into Apple devices called Voiceover. You can learn more about it at their website.
www.apple.com

I would say just make sure everything is labeled correctly so Voiceover can tell us what's on the screen so we know what we are doing.

Thank you

:-)

By David Taylor on Thursday, September 5, 2019 - 16:24

I can't seem to get the full forcast buttons in settings to work. Otherwise, my comments are gripes that I have with most weather apps, simply, not enough detail. As a blind person, just telling me that it might rain is, well, helpful, but not all that helpful. It's as likely to be wind that makes me change my plans as rain, but app designers only seem to be interested in rain for most apps. I've played about with all sorts of apps, and found that Weather Pro comes the closest in terms of information, although it is far too verbose, but that's the level of information I would like in a decent weather app, plus things like feels like and humidity. I shall certainly see how this stacks up for accuracy over time though.

By MetOfficeApp on Thursday, September 5, 2019 - 16:24

Thank you for your speedy replies!
That gives us a good starting point to work with :)

Can I ask what you would expect a label to be?

By Netscriptus on Thursday, September 5, 2019 - 16:24

Hi Sarah:

I'm happy to demonstrate one of my favorite weather apps, which I use quite often, if you'd like. I can eMail you a dropbox link to a demonstration of MetService, which is available in New Zealand.
In this demo, I can demonstrate good labelling, and bad labelling. I haven't put the demo together yet, however if you'd like, I can create one. Please eMail me at robotech8000@gmail.com