Has anybody tried the latest release of the Uber app?

You can still use fair split in the latest version of the app. When you are on the trip screen the first unlabelled button takes you into a menu and one of the options is fair split. I don't remember what other options are in this menu The other unlabelled button on the trip screen lets you change the payment method and I think there may be some other options as well but I'm not sure.

Hi everyone,

I wanted to apologize for the way I characterized conversations my colleagues had with the National Federation of the Blind and the American Council for the Blind. My team and I care deeply about trying to understand your concerns and we are working hard towards tangible solutions. We recognize that open lines of communication are critical to this process, and appreciate all of the feedback you’ve been sharing here and in the Uber app.

As an iOS developer, I test the app on VoiceOver as often as I can to make sure that things are working. We recognize that there are still improvements to be made and are working to address those.

To continue to share your feedback, you can visit <a href="https://help.uber.com/h/6f6eba04-9e5b-4c0f-840d-e7d158dc06bf">this page</a> or do so in the app with the instructions below:
Navigate to the Help section in your app
Select Accessibility
Select “I have feedback about VoiceOver or TalkBack features”

This will ensure that the engineering team can review and address your feedback in a timely manner. Thank you to everyone for your thoughtful feedback, and please keep it coming.

Thanks,

PJ

I seem to have a problem with the help section. When I open it in the Uber app, all I can find are my most recent messages and a link to view all messages. I also can see information for my last trip. I see no sections, including one for accessibility specifically. Am I doing something wrong, or is this something I have to wait for an upcoming update to find?

Hi PJ, Thanks for being open to hearing our feedback. I need to point out, however, that I agree with many of the points made in the NFB's blog post, and I usually disagree with the NFB on all things. But in this case, I don't think the problem has to do with opening channels of communication to collect feedback about accessibility issues. I think the real problem is that accessibility testing isn't baked into the development cycle. Trying to fix accessibility problems after the app has been fully redesigned sounds like a nightmare from a developer's perspective. AM I missing something, or wouldn't it be more cost-effective for Uber to address accessibility from the groun up? Also, there are several users on this forum (including me) who depend on Uber to get to work. An accessibility issue, even if it gets fixed in a few days, could put me and others in a very difficult situation..

Hi,
Accessibility is after "A Guide to Uber",, in the help menu.
I can try t create a podcast. I have never created one but if someone could give me a little guidance on how to start out that would help.

So I'm thinking that Uber has outsourced customer service. Having worked in product support before, I know when you are within the company supporting customers, the customer is king. But once a company decides that's too expensive and outsources support, then service is rated by the number of calls per hour or the number of incidents resolved, or the number of emails sent. This is my guess why you are getting the canned responses so your "issue" can be quickly "resolved" because that's how productivity is measured in that arena.
If I weren't stuck at work, I'd go to their headquarters on Market street, bring a printout of the Applevis complaints and show that to them in person, refusing to leave until someone in corporate actually acknowledges this is an issue they will work on. No doubt the software engineer assigned to update the app knows nothing about accessibility -- that's probably outsourced as well. I work about fifty miles away from that address. Is anyone closer who could hand-deliver a printout of this thread?

I I would, however I'm probably across the country.. Where in help is accessibility I don't think I saw it either.

It is important to note that this option was recently added so make sure you have the most up to date version of Uber. First open Uber. Then go into menu. Once in menu select help. Flick right and you will hear Additional Topics. First is Trip and fare review, a guide to Uber and then there is Accessibility double tap on that. The last option in that list is I have feedback about Voiceover or Talkback Issues. It's fairly simple to find.

A new update came out today. Now the schedule ride feature is visible for Voiceover in main screen. Didn't have the opportunity to try it on trip yet. But as far as i can tell when requesting a ride Voiceover does not announce what location was set by default. Yesterday my driver called saying he could not find me because the location I sent as current was not accurate. This is not difficult to fix.
As I live in Argentina, my iPhone and Voiceover speak Spanish. The accessibility feedback option does not appear on the app. If you don't yet receive feedback in other languages, you should let bilingual users write in English.
On plan ride screen some accessibility labels were not translated and, most important, I could not find the back button on screen or perform the two finger scrub gesture.
Finally, those who like the map exploration feature would really appreciate if the map that displays car location is made accessible.

Even when a three finger swipe can switch between car types, some blind users will find easier if there is a slider to flic up and down.
There was some progress on dynamic pricing. Now when selecting the car it says the price is increased due to high demand. But Voiceover does not read how more expensive the trip will bet.

I wonder if the leave feedback thing is for english speaking users only? I almost had to schedule a uber today when our car broke down, but luckelly I didn't.

Take care.

Signed up with Uber yesterday and am looking forward to my first ride...

Just wanted to say no problems with the app and agree with Jeff re Accessibility within Help. May I suggest for anyone still experiencing difficulty with the app to uninstall and then redownload it to see if that resolves their issue.

Hi Mendy. Have you either uninstalled and reinstalled, or rebooted the device? I'm sure you have, just offering what I can. I also wonder if the voice over feedback is only available to English speakers? Btw, I wasn't suggesting someone isn't speaking English, just agreeing with Ke7zum. I'm glad the schedule a ride is now visible again. I haven't used it in a little bit, but I want to again soon.

Hi all. Chris Jud did a phenominal podcast about the new Uber update. He says the notifications still work, also I've found you can also subscribe to text sms too. So I guess you could have the notification, but if you're not sure of the sound being through or not, you could enable this too. i might consider this, given my phone's in my purse so I almost don't hear the trytone sound. I wish some app developers would consider a sound option either their own, or the default being that then the trytone you can pick. It's just so blah, many apps use it.

Last night I took Uber home with a friend from a rock show. I was able to put in my location get to my friend’s house and then change the destination to take me home. I was even able to rate the driver that all was accessible. One thing I didn’t notice was the change of price as I was going from 1 location to another however that could have been because I did not look for it. The price was more than I thought it would be due to it being 12 O’clock at night. I did see maybe 1 or 2 unlabeled buttons but I did not get to see what they did. I do wish there was a way to see where the car was as my friend who had some vision was able to see a map and the car as it got closer. Once I arrived at my destination I was back at the start screen after opening the app and was able to rate the driver. The app was just a bit sluggish at times while flicking but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. Another feature that would have been helpful would be to know the color of the car for when you are with someone that can see it or someone with low vision that has trouble seeing the screen. Here is a thought that I am just throwing out here. I’ve noticed that a lot of times the drivers either don’t pull all the way up to your location, or call when they are close enough expecting you to go to them. Perhaps a profile option that you could check that says rider is blind or visually impaired so that the driver knows that they have to look for you would help? Considering that the driver can cancel the ride at any time this may help as sometimes calls with the driver can cut in and out. Just my thoughts all and all the app is Vo friendly and works well for me.

The last button on trip screen is not yet labelled

That is a fair point I did not think about Uber Drivers Canceling on us. To change the destination you tap on where it says destination then the address. Before I did this I asked the driver if it was alright that after my friend got out if I changed the destination and he agreed. So before you change the destination I would let the driver know. I changed the destination after ariving at the first location and my friend got out. I am asuming that you would be able to do this dorring a trip but I do not know. You should know though that it will show it as 1 trip but you are charged for location A to C then from C to B. I do not know how you would be charged if you changed the destination while in the middle of 1 and if that is even possible.

You should be able to text the driver

I don't know where someone got the idea you can't text the driver. You can, I did twice. I had to show him where I was, bonus he was only three minutes away not fifteen. Anyway everything whent great. No accessibility problems. I do wish the app were faster, especially because of running on a newer phone, I'm just not a fan of slow apps. Thanks Peejay for the help. Hope more accessibility changes come, as in knowing when to know a car is close. I got the notifications, everything went well.

Yeah I know you can text the driver but my thought would be a way to skip that step. Although as Troy pointed out though that might not be the best idea. Also yes the notifications work great but as I said before there is also a map that sighted people can see with the car getting closer and it would be nice to have that reference.

Seriously asking how? As it was, it was easier to know when to book when it would give you an ETA. As for texting the driver thank god I did because I was estimating fifteen minutes, he was three minutes from me. Where I live, most drivers are on the main highway obviously not here so much. I'm not sure it's possible to give us a reference like that.

I do also think the information about the color of a vehicle could be a wwelcome edition. I can't tell you the number of times my room mate and I have gone grocery shopping and when we grab an Uber, one of the first questions we usually get from the person assisting us is, what color vehicle do they have? The driver would have to enter that information in the Uber databases, just like their name, type of vehicle and license number so I don't think that would be too hard to add. or at least, I would hope not.

Since drivers can rent card to drive instead of their own they will need to change this every day should they decide to do so.

Before I get to that though, to the person who heard the Lyft app was worse than the Uber app, not so. There is an issue with the viewing a driver's profile portion, but you can see enough to use it, IE driver name, ETA, contact driver, etc. Really, the profile was more of an added personal touch bonus on Lyft anyway.

But, back to Uber... I don't know if it was the recent update or if finally on one reboot of my phone or another made it show up, but I do see all of my help options. Now, if we could just get a couple of those mystery buttons labeled and get back the ability to change destination while on a trip, that would be great. Or, if Uber would take a page from Lyft's book and allow adding a stop, then the destination thing would be a non-issue.

The app works great for me. I have not had any issues in ordering a car. I also have not had any issues determining when the car is arriving as I am notified by the app. Contacting the driver is also not a problem for me. I'm glad that Uber is accessible.

Uber Has released today version 3.221.5. In this update Voiceover does not give any information of dynamic price. I could detect it because I had to do a route that is very frequent for me. This should be fixed as soon as possible since we are not getting information on what we pay for our rides.

Some countries offer the possibility to pay Uber trips with cash. With this feature riders are requested to pay the price that appears on the driver's app. But in this case we have tu trust our driver. That information should be offered for riders on app.

I am pleased to report this functionality is once again accessible! Yesterday, I wanted to make a stop. So I set the destination to my first place and looked to find that the ability to change destination on the trip is once again usable and accessible! I was quite pleased to change my destination once I reached my first stop and it updated the driver so I could make it home with no issues at all. It appears perhaps Uber is listening. I appreciate it and am pleased to see that there is forward progress on the items we are reporting.

I downloaded the latest update to the Uber app yesterday. I'm wondering if this is just me and I need to reinstall, or if this is a really incredibly broken update. When I open the app, all I can read with VO is the menu button up in the upper left corner. It is as if nothing at all exists on the screen. The app just worked yesterday. So I can only assume this latest update that I got last night is what did this.

Anyone else experiencing this, or should I delete the app and try again?

With this last update, Voiceover does not yet announce how expensive the ride will be when dynamic price is working. I report in this tread because I can't see the accessibility feedback option under help.

For the past 2 days, the rate driver button is missing from my ap. It use to be under the where to part but now it has vanished.

Thank you for your support of VoiceOver on iOS. I consider myself an advance VoiceOver. I would never have tried swiping left after double tapping the where to screen to find my pickup location. In fact, I just found it after reading your post. I missed a ride today because the driver and I were not at the same location. I'm glad it is there but many novice VoiceOver users might not find it easily. I know that real estate is scarce but there must be a better design.

Please pass along to your front end team. I could be crazy but I tried the uber site on desktop with both I.E. & Firefox and Jaws for Windows. There seemed to be serious a11y issues with reading and navigation. Do you know if they also test the web for desktop?
Thanks

I'm using Window-eyes 9.5.4.0 and had no trouble signing into the Uber website on the pc. The only change I think would make things a little easier, would be to have the driver, and rider sign-in links on the front page. As it is now, you first have to go to a sign-in link, followed by rider sign-in which is a ways down. That's really the only suggestion I can think of. Other than that I had no trouble logging in, and viewing my previous rides and such.

I'm liking the flat fair thing. I sure hope they keep it s I have to be notified when it comes backinto my area. This is so cool! I ony wish now the uber pool thing would read correctly with 1 or 2 seats.

@Marc: Thanks for your note. Your have a good point, editing your Pickup isn't very discoverable on VoiceOver. I'll brainstorm some improvements there. Thanks also for your note about the website, I've forwarded it to our web team so that they can investigate.
@KE7ZUM: I'm glad you're liking the flat fare feature! Thanks for raising the Uber POOL capacity issue, I hear you and I'm working with our POOL team to get a fix out.

I can confirm this actually. In the latest version of the Uber app available on March 17th 2017, when changing locations during a ride, it may send the driver to a different location other than the one that a VoiceOver user double-taps on. For example, I wanted to return home after a shopping trip, and even though I double-tapped on the location for my home shortcut, it sent the driver to my doctor's office, which is the next one over in the list of saved locations. It's a good thing the driver mentioned it or we would've gone way out of our way. It's just a focus issue but I'm certain it can be fixed.