Kik Messaging & Chat App

A nice easy to use cross platform text messaging client.

There's no need to share emails or phone numbers, just your Kik username.

I also noticed that the website is incorrect, it is now kik.com, and you can also follow @kik on twitter.

Sure there are a few unlabelled buttons, but the app is still quite usable.

the app is usable, but one thing to note is that if you delete the app and reinstall it you have to log back into kik again. At that point once you have filled in your user name and password you are prompted to fill in a captcha to be able to sign in. This is very difficult on ios without sighted help as kik claim to offer an audio captcha but I wasn't able to find a way to access it with VoiceOver. I eventually did get signed back in buy using tap tap see to solve a screen shot of the captcha but it took a lot of goes, more than ten I think. For some reason you are not prompted with a captcha when creating your account, you are only prompted with it when trying to sign back into an existing account.

I noticed the same thing when entering my email address, so I tried again with just my kik username and didn't receive the captcha.

I don't know why it's like that, I'm just glad it worked for me.

oh that's worth knowing, I never tried with my user name, always with my email.

I like the app a lot. The biggest problem I've found is that VO doesn't read the smiley options. This is okay, as I prefer to make them with punctuation.

I found Kik extremely easy to set up, but every time I'm chatting with someone, all I hear in place of their username is "Button, button..." This is especially troublesome while group-chatting.

Are there any workarounds I should know about? Should I write directly to the developers?

Thanks,
L

I would write direct to the developers. This way they know what's going on. Send screenshots of the effected areas if possible and explain in detail what accessibility is and how it can benifit if they fix this.

I wrote directly to the developers. I gave them details about the problem I'm having, suggested a way to fix it, and linked them to Apple's accessibility documentation page.

It's been two weeks, and nothing. Time to hurry up and wait some more, I suppose.

I'd suggest changing some of the information on this page to reflect Kik's current accessibility issues. I have no trouble at all with the edit field, but I have plenty in group-chats when I have no idea who's talking. I wouldn't call their accessibility issues, “Minor,” since they prevent me from using the app at all.

L

If you scroll to the top of the group, it should tell you who's typing and by that you can figure out who is typing. at least that's worked for me. If anyone wants to kik me, my kik name is duke.togo.

I have noticed the username announcement at the top of the group before, but this only appears momentarily. If I want to keep up with a conversation, I'd have to keep flicking all over the place.

Additionally, there has been one Kik update, and exactly zero accessibility improvements or responses to the initial message I sent them. I will continue contacting them, since Kik seems to be quite a hit with my sighted peers, and VI folks should not have to be barred from using it if the fix is as simple as labeling.

Also, I hope very much that VO users who are curious about Kik read the comments on this article, and don't take the, SEVERELY, out-of-date accessibility commentary at the top at face value. I'll say it again. These accessibility issues are not "Minor," if they are preventing customers from using the program.

L

This could be my way out of date iPod touch, being a 4th gen iPod, yeah I know, hopefully I'll be getting a phone soon.

anyway my problem is, when double tapping on a conversation, nothing happens.

VO just says selected.

I tried it out on my nephew's phone and it appears to work on his phone, so I'm hoping it's only on the ancient devices.

I let them know through a support link they gave me on twitter, but got no responce.

This was about 3 updates ago, and I still have the same issue.

I can't even accept friend requests cause of this issue.

I'm hoping it's only my ancient iPod so I'll give it another try once I get my phone.

In the meantime, I uninstalled the app, no point having it when I can't use it.

I was helping a friend out with making a kik account, and he had the same issue. I thought he was the only one. As for the group problem, I've not had the problem of trying to keep up with the conversation. But, I think a lot of the people that i talk to, type slower than me even though they're sighted lol. The top of the group has only failed me a few times. Other than that, it's quite accurate in my point of view. My name on kik is duke.togo if anyone wants to add me on there.

Hi, wondering does anyone know how exactly I send a photo through kik to someone I am talking with?
I have managed to give kik access to my camera, I can't remember if it has access to photos yet. I don't use kik to help take the photo when I want to send it, I do that with the camera itself.
However once I have my photo ready to send I can't figure out how to get into my photo library to then send a photo, unfortunately kiks accessibility leaves a lot to be desired in the conversation window, with lots of unlabeled buttons etc, tapping on them doesn't really seem to help, any assistance would be appreciated.

I just updated Kik to 11.0.0 and I now can't read messages in the chat? It just says, "Button." I have contacted Kik Support. I mentioned this website to them. Hopefully it will be accessible.

to chat to people with the new version you need to tap first on the icon that is labeled talk to plus, then you'll get a bunch of unlabeled buttons.

The first one didn't appear to do anything when I tested it.

Here is what they do in order of swiping from left to right.

Like I said, above the first didn't do anything, the second button shows you your chats and lets you search for someone.

Keep swiping to the right to see the list of people you added to your list.

Getting back to the list of unlabeled buttons, third is your groups, fourth is where you can scan peoples QR codes to add them quickly.

Very useful when you want to exchange kik info with your friends.

, and the last unlabeled button is the bot shop.

When I first got the update, I too thought it was no longer accessible, but then I was playing around with it and thought, apart from a few unlabeled buttons, with a bit of patience the app is still usable.

Hello all. I just reset my password. No matter if i use a captial or not, on my username, I get a log in failed error. I know the password change went through. i sent an email to kik, let's see what hapens. If I ever get in there. I'm Irish_storm on there.

I found one way of dealing with captchas in kik is to save a screen shot then send it to tap tap see, its not ideal I know but there is no real solution for captchas on ios. Did you try resetting your password again in case you made a mistake with case or something?

Here is the email they sent me a few days ago.

"Hey there,

Thanks for your message. We're always looking for ways to improve and we really appreciate you taking the time to write to us with your feedback.

Unfortunately, Kik doesn’t have a feature that support Apple’s VoiceOver. We can definitely see how this would be a helpful feature in some situations and we're always working on new versions of Kik that include improvements to the app, and new features. So make sure to keep checking your app store for updates!

If you have any other suggestions, you know where to send them :)"

it sounds to me like kik isn't terribly bothered about VoiceOver and in fact maybe they didn't entirely understand what it is. thanks for the eye of providence recommendation I hadn't come across this app, I am going to have to check this out. in fact I am not sure if its in the app directory will have to check.

an update for kik just came out, and when it came out I saw it said new look, but I thought well it can't get much worse than it was already. actually this new look seems to have improved accessibility quite a bit, a lot of the buttons now have labels though not all, and also deleting chats now works through the rotor actions menu. Of course I have no idea if this is down to kik making an effort with accessibility, though button labeling kind of makes me think possibly. anyway I think from the looks of things its an improvement so maybe we need to keep letting kik know where button labeling is still not good. Of course the support for the rotor could just be that they are using more standard app controls, as a lot of developers don't even know about the rotor. I wonder if the log in situation has improved with the captcha. though I have never got audio captchas to work under ios. I don't plan to log out to test this as its working fine for me at the moment with being logged in.

I've been trying to login to my current Kik account, but whenever I press login, it just says loading... and there's a cancel button, and it stays like this all the time.
I tried everything possible, closing the app, changing my password, twice, even signing up with another email address and username, even that didn't work, it's saying loading... as I'm sitting here writing this.

I tried using tap tap see, and eye of providence to see if it'll solve the capture code. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Tap tap see just said it's a capture code, eye of providence was better, sort of, it tried to solve one capture, got it completely wrong, and in other photos I took it didn't even recognise the capture. It is a shame that captures are such difficult to solve, there really should be a way to solve visual captures where it's impossible to get an audio capture.

what about using bespecular? that way you could take your screen shot, send it through to bespecular and type a specific question asking for the solution, I have had success with bespecular, its just annoying when you want to disable requests or delete them once you have the information you need, which you need to do as otherwise you keep getting answers from people. I have found with tap tap see though that sometimes I have had to send the same screen shot several times before I get the result, but if you need a real human bespecular is probably your best bet.

Has anyone managed to successfully start a video chat on Kik? There's supposed to be an icon that looks like a movie camera in the right corner of the screen, but VoiceOver doesn't seem to read it - or at least I can't find it.

Hi, is it accessible after the last update? I need to download it but I'm not sure

Hi all. I am wondering I am using kik and am wondering does any one know how to get past all the kik live stuff?since i have had people send me a new message or chat but I can't seem to find it. i have 2 items on kik that i can't seem to get to since i have to go past all the kik live streems and stuff that is at the top of the page before you get down to the messages. and even then i don't see any new dchat info. I am using ios the newest version and a i phone 8. many thanks for any help any one can give me.