The Wall Street Journal.

Category

Description of App

News You Can Trust Wherever You Are – Subscribe Today and Get 4 Weeks Free! An important decision can happen anywhere. Use The Wall Street Journal to get our trusted and authoritative news while you’re on the go. Read by more high-level decision makers than any other media, WSJ's market-moving journalism ensures you a competitive advantage in a world where every second counts. Here are just a few of the many features of our app: • A fully-multimedia experience with interactive graphics, vibrant photo slideshows, and high-quality video. • Updated 24/7 so the latest news is always at your disposal. • Share and save articles to make sure the information you need is right where you want it. • Expanded lifestyle content spanning arts & entertainment, luxury real estate, tech, fashion, sports and more. Subscribe for $22.99 per month to receive unlimited digital access on iPad, iPhone, all other WSJ tablet & smartphone apps, and WSJ Online. Your subscription will renew automatically each month and payment will be charged to your iTunes Account within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period. You can turn off auto-renewal by going to your Account Settings after purchase. No cancellation of your subscription is allowed during the active subscription period. Subscriber Agreement & Terms of Use: http://online.wsj.com/public/page/subscriber_agreement.html

Version

5.5.5

Free or Paid

Free

Apple Watch Support

Not Known

Device(s) App Was Tested On

iPhone

Accessibility Comments

***AppleVis Editorial Team Note: The below comments reflect an older version of this app, version 3.0. As of version 5.5.5 (March 2014), accessibility has been improved.*** The actual articles themselves are not accessible at all. The section buttons, article titles and other navigation are all readable but what's the point if you can't read the articles.

VoiceOver Performance

VoiceOver reads most page elements.

Button Labeling

Most buttons are clearly labeled.

Usability

There are some minor accessibility issues with this app, but they are easy to deal with.

Other Comments

PLEASE NOTE: This app is technically free to download but in order to continue to receive the news after a short demo period you must pay for a subscription.

Options

Comments

By alex wallis on Friday, March 21, 2014 - 17:57

Hi, after having installed this app, I believe it is time to change the comments and accessibility rating. I have found that I can access article titles and have been able to get VoiceOver to read me an article with no problem. Once you tap on an article and you find the beginning of the article text in order to scroll through it you must swipe up and down on the screen with three fingers scrolling up away from the home button if your phone is in portrait mode will move you to the next part, and swiping towards the home button will move you back. Whenever you three finger swipe on the screen you get the sound from VoiceOver that you get when you scroll the screen, then VoiceOver stutters for a second I assume while the screen is scrolling then it begins to read the next article section. I guess maybe three finger swiping is like scrolling by page, after having experimented some more I have found that a two finger swipe on the screen will read the hole article continuously but with frequent pauses and chirps as the screen goes to the next page. I would say the interface for this app could do with some work but it is far from inaccessible and I haven't found any parts so far that I can't access with VoiceOver, I don't plan on doing extensive testing with this app as there is only one article I want to read from it at the moment. I think the original comments should be removed as they no longer appear to reflect the state of accessibility for the app.

By Travis Roth on Saturday, March 21, 2015 - 17:57

This commentary reviews The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) app version 6.2 released on February 20, 2015. I am using the WSJ app on an iPad Mini with iOS 8.1.3 and in case it is significant, I am using portrait viewing mode.
I am going to cover the basic use of the app for reading and searching. The app description mentions some other features such as saving articles, this is not covered here as I have not found how to do them yet. Nevertheless I hope this review is helpful for you to decide if the app is worth your time.

First, as previous comments state the app is more accessible than when it was originally added to the app directory. It is not fully accessible. It can be used if you are willing to tolerate the short-comings and work around them.

First, what works:
Articles can be read. If VoiceOver is set to continuously read, it will scroll the pages of the article, most of the time. If you read manually, each page is in one swipe block. To move to the next page you need to scroll right, three fingers swipe from right to left, when using the app on an iPad in portrait mode. Flicking does allow navigation of the screen including finding the article. This also means that Braille works to find and read the text of an article.
Links to articles can be double tapped to go there. For example, when on Page One, the text is made up of links. VoiceOver does not announce they are links but tapping them will activate. Note some links are announced as links, but often not. The user needs to read the text intuitively.
Stock quotes. Stock quote screens are accessible. If an article talks about publicly traded companies, the related stock ticker symbols appear after the content block of the article. For example, if Apple is mentioned, the link may read “AAPL 1.9%”. The percentage is related to the day’s stock move. VoiceOver does not announce this is a link, however it is, and double tapping will open a detailed quotes screen. There is text on this screen and it can be read. It seems similar to the Apple Stocks app.
Search. At the top of the screen there is a Search button. Tapping it opens a search screen that works as one would expect. Search results are displayed in a list, and tapping one will open the article, etc. Note that when an article is displayed from the search results, the back arrow button is not labeled correctly, but the icon name is distinguishable enough to find it.
Share. This brings up the normal Apple sharing screen.
Editions. This button allows for the selection of the issues currently available in the app. This button also gives access to the Settings button. The screen is accessible.
Settings. This area is accessible. I was able to purchase a subscription, register for a WSJ online account (which can be used to log into the website from a web browser also), and sign in to the app. I have not tried to unsubscribe, however, the documentation notes this is managed via Apple’s subscription mechanism from within App Purchases, not by the WSJ app so I assume this is accessible.

Issues
Sections. The biggest problem with the WSJ app is the Sections screen. Tapping the Sections button at the top of the screen will display the various sections and number of articles for each section. Selecting a section displays the links to the articles in the section. Unfortunately, the links do not read. VoiceOver says “link” for each. You can tap the link to activate it, so this does provide a way to move to a specific section. You just will not know what article you are going to. There does not appear to be any way to leave this screen without selecting an article, which means you cannot escape back to the last article you were reading. Since you cannot find the link to the article you were reading you will most likely not be returned to it. So only use this screen when you’re sure you want to change sections. The workaround to navigating a section is to select one either from the Sections screen clicking on the first link, or from the Page One area. Once in a section, it acts like a newspaper or book. Scrolling through the articles page by page, swiping right to left with three fingers on an iPad in portrait mode, will continue to move through the article’s pages, and when the end of an article is reached, it will move to the next article. The screen does not provide a counter of what article you are on, so you do not know if you are on article six of 12 for example. When a section ending is reached, the next section is automatically scrolled to, giving the experience to be like a magazine.

Page counter. At the bottom of an article is the usual page counter slider found in iOS. It will show page 1 of 3 for example when on the first page of an article. Note this is article specific, not section specific. You can use usual iOS gestures to change the setting here, however, it does not have an effect on the article. In other words, changing the page slider does not scroll the article. The slider will update when a new page is scrolled to either automatically by VoiceOver or with the three finger flicking gesture. So at least you know how much of the article remains.

Advertisements. WSJ is apparently full of advertisements. The advertisements are graphical, and are not labeled with alternative text. Often, page two of an article is a full screen advertisement. VoiceOver will usually announce the name of some graphic. You can scroll to the next page and the article will pick up again. Longer articles may have multiple advertisements dispersed throughout. There are also some interactive activities often with edit fields. VoiceOver does not announce their purpose, I assume it is a poll or something. You can scroll past these usually, though occasionally VoiceOver will get stuck on these screens.

By Travis Roth on Monday, September 21, 2015 - 17:57

This version does some bug fixes and adds Apple Watch support.
Please see my previous comment on version 6.2 for an overall description of this app and issues.
In this 7.1 update the important bug fix of note is that the previously mentioned issue in the "Sections" area of the app which did not read names of links has been fixed. VoiceOver can now read the names of the links to articles. This makes browsing the paper much easier and faster. Note: I tested this using iOS 9 and an iPad Mini, in case there is different behavior on other devices or earlier iOS versions.

By ken on Thursday, April 21, 2016 - 17:57

The speech is choppy because voiceover pronounces every syllable as if it were a new word. When I examined words Character by character, voiceover reported a "soft hyphen" between every syllable. A sighted person looking at the screen couldn't see these soft hyphens. Does anyone know What could cause this? Ken