Every year at its Worldwide Developersā Conference (WWDC), Apple celebrates and acknowledges through its Apple Design Awards the mobile and desktop apps which raise the bar in design, technology and innovation.
Presented in a ceremony that traditionally follows the WWDC keynote presentation, it was tremendous to see the Workflow iOS app winning one of these prestigious awards this year because of its accessibility with VoiceOver. In fact, two members of Appleās Accessibility Team were invited onto stage to demonstrate just how well the app works with VoiceOver.
According to Appleās own report on the 2015 Design Awards:
Workflow is a powerful automation tool, available exclusively for iPhone and Apple Watch, that connect apps and actions together to automate things you do every day. Selected as an Apple Design Award winner for its outstanding use of iOS accessibility features, Workflow delivers an excellent implementation for VoiceOver with clearly labeled items, thoughtful hints, and drag/drop announcements, all of which make the app usable and quickly accessible to those who are blind or low-vision. The creators of Workflow understand that true accessibility is not just a technical task, it also requires design and usability consideration.
Workflow: Powerful Automation Made Simple is a US$2.99 download from the iTunes App Store.
Our congratulations go to all of the team at DeskConnect for this well-deserved recognition.
This news is yet another tool that can be used by the community when advocating for app accessibility. Not only do we think that fair and equal access is important, but so do Apple, and Apple is prepared to recognize the developers who share that vision.
Comments
Awesome!
The subject says it all, really. Is there somewhere that we can check out that presentation?
Workflow.
An incredible app. I've just watched the awards on the wwdc app, and it was wonderful to listen to a live VO demonstration by Apple's accessibility team. It would be lovely if Apple could occasionally incorporate these kind of demonstrations into software and product launches where applicable, if introducing a new accessibility feature, for example. Perhaps an unrealistic request, but I see no reason why all accessibility features shouldn't be publicly highlighted for everyone to experience once in a while. A good illustration would be Braille screen input, an absolutely game changing feature, but not even a public acknowledgement at wwdc verbally, of It's inclusion in ios8, and I do consider that a little sad. Apple should be proud and be willing to shout it from the roof tops for all customers at every opportunity where relevant.
I agree that work flow is
I agree that work flow is awsome. I use it for small tasks and hope to maybe one day take advantage of all of the deatures, but for now I'm quite happy with it.
No better way to find more users
Hearing a demo of this app at the Apple design awards makes me want to buy it just to see what I can do with it. I'd love to see Apple aim to highlight at least 1 app each year with such outstanding accessibility. It would more clearly show how much Apple is committed to accessibility and might encourage more developers to give more consideration to accessibility during development. So often, accessibility is a mere after thought, when it in fact needs to be part of the design process before a UI is even created or code written. Starting out with accessibility in mind is easier than retrofitting accessibility to existing code.
Well deserved
I use it all of the time, not just for small tasks as a previous commenter said. It's a worthy automation tool, especially when paired with Drafts and such. I'm a heavy user of this app and it showed me that real things can be done on iPads and iPhones.
Well Done Apple!
I don't currently own an i-device, but this is amazing! It makes me want to go out and purchase one though just to see this app in action. I'm so proud to count myself among the many customers of this outstanding company.