Dating apps

Hi, I too have tried OkCupid and was also sadly disappointed that the app did not seem to be that accessible. I've installed and had Plenty of fish on my phone for a long time. The app still seems to be pretty accessible, with a few minor nuissances, but for the most part, still fairly useable. I don't use it everyday but will occasionally check to see who the app matches me with in the hopes to find that special someone.

You can try it

The problem with Plenty of Fish is the large amount of bots and fake accounts. I tried EHarmony and it was mostly accessible but it is very expensive and I never got anywhere with it to feel like paying more. I might try Tinder

Hi, I'm using Ok Cupid for few days now and it works pretty ok. My only doubt is how to know if the person I'm talking to is online? Do any of you guys know how to find that with Voice over on iOS or with Jaws in Windows browser?

GROWLr: The Gay Bear Social Media
works quite well, if one happens to be gay or bi

I met my wife on match.com almost 9 years ago. Used it on line. Worth the money.

Hey Dave, I only use the Ok Cupid app for chatting with a friend. But whenever my laptop is running, I use Ok Cupid website. As I said, I've started using it very recently and unable to find either with Voiceover or Jaws whether my friend is currently online. Is there a way to know?

Hey Dave, It's because We met on Ok Cupid itself a few days ago

Hey Vicky, it worked. Thanks :)
I've not tried Tinder.

I've been able to use Grindr pretty well.

Ok if you happen to be gay or bi again ...

Now, after some time, decided to give up on Plenty of Fish and have tried Facebook's new dating feature.

For the most part, the feature seems to work fairly well with no issues that I've come across.

Hi. How does the Facebook dating feature work?

Maybe people think we blind people do not date or have sex or reproduce. Could it b why apps are not accessible? The question of the ages.

Hello. I have also tryed apps for dating, but it is not very accessible. People have to make this accessible. We have also rite to love.

Let me just start by saying that I'm not trying to discourage anybody from using these apps or websites, this is just some advice that I thought would be good to pass along. Dating apps are dangerous. I'm sure most of these dating apps and websites don't do background checks on the people who sign up for them. People can say whatever they want about themselves on their dating profiles, it may be true, it may be nothing but a bunch of lies, you never know. If by some chance you happen to meet somebody on one of these dating services, don't agree to meet at your home or place of work. meet this person in a public place, take a friend with you the first time. You can use been varrified to run a background check on a person if you happen to meet somebody on one of these dating services. The been varrified app is completely accessable. While certain parts of a person's background check are free, their name, any phone numbers, and addresses they lived at are free, other things like any crimes they commited are not and you will have to pay for that. I think the full report is something like $15 a month.

There is a new accessible site called Cupids Arrow, designed by a brilliant blind guy that helped me create my online card game site Blind Adrenaline. It's purpose is to allow the disabled to find friends and partners without all the complicated setup, and he is giving out 3 months of premium memberships until March 31.

www.cupidsarrow.club
I know this isn't specifically an Apple thing, but figured folks checking this thread might find it helpful. Good luck.

The feature is found in the Facebook app itself. I believe if you tap onto the Facebook Menu tab, at the bottom right of the screen, then open the Show All Shortcuts area, there is an option called Dating.

If you tap on this, it'll bring you to the feature where you can set up your profile.

I believe you can set up the age range for matches and set up a profile. Once that is done, then, each time you return to the Dating feature, from the top down, you have buttons, such as... Dating Settings, where you can configure your matches, then there is a Dating Profile, where you can set up your own profile, then Liked You, where others whom have seen your profile and liked you will appear. Then you have a Matches button, where you can view your matches.

Then you have a Story button, that I'm not too sure as that is something new.

After that it has a Profile Card button, followed by a No Thanks and a Like button.

Then you have three last buttons. the first two are called Suggestions from your Events and Suggestions from your Groups, which I'm guessing would give you matches from Events you are participating in and matches from your Facebook Groups. Then lastly, we have a button called Secret Crush. From what I can remember, you can insert a name of a crush you have in your Facebook friends, and they will only ever know if they insert your name as a Secret Crush too.

Also, once you and a potential match have liked each other, you can also chat with one another. I believe there is also a section in the chat area that you can select from common questions, like What is your favourite science-fiction movie?, or other fun questions to break the ice.

If you wish to read a profile, you simply have to tap on the Profile Card in order to view it. Once in the profile, you can read through it and then tap on either the No Thanks or the Like button at the bottom. When pressing on either of these buttons, the profile changes to a new match, and you can simply just bring focus back to the top of the screen and begin reading the new profile.

I've been using this for a while and do find it pretty much accessible. I have had a few matches and have liked a few of my own and it has worked pretty well.

I do agree with Treky Fan and Oliver that you do have to be prudent and use common sense when using an online dating service, but like Oliver mentioned, this is true for anyone, sighted or blind, using an online dating service.

HTH!

To begin with, the person who said online dating is dangerous has a point, up to a point. if you handle it sensibly it can actually be less dangerous than orthodox dating. you've a chance to know a lot more about the person you're dating before you meet them, to begin with. sure, they might not be who they say they are, but you can do that with orthodox dating too. Anyone who's seen that episode of Only Fools and Horses entitled 'Dates' wil know what I'm talking about, and anyone who hasn't seen it jolly well should.

My experience with online dating apps is that the free ones are nice because they're free, but they also get the lion's share of nutjobs because they're free. eHarmony might be expensive but I found my other half on there and thought that, by and large, you've got a more limited but at the same time more sensible selection. The app had its accessibility issues but I found it usable, and where the app fell short I could at least go on the website which usually filled the gap. I should add that this was three or so years ago, so the app might have gone backwards since then. If you go for eHarmony, be honest in the questionnaire. it saves time later.

I’m also interested to know.

I'm honestly not expecting a lot, I think I'll have better luck off line dating instead of on line but it's very accessible.

The only thing is, the hobbies box only allows you to list 3 or 4 hobbies.

Hi guys.

First I want to tell you about a few apps that I have tried, and also tell you about my own personal dating experiences. Take what you want of this, but I thought everyone should know. The first app on my list is called hinge. it’s mostly accessible, except for the four tabs on the bottom. The first tab is the Discover tab, the second is the lake tab, where you can see who liked you the third tab is the messages tab, where you can chat with your potential matches, and the fourth tab is the profile tab where you can do things such as edit your profile, and change your account settings. EHarmony is also great, but fairly expensive but you might find better luck on there just because people pay for the app, or rather the features not the app itself but the features like browsing your matches and messaging people. I also found that there are a lot of people who are not quick to judge on sites like eHarmony and match. OkCupid is somewhere accessible, I haven’t had any issues with the Accessibility part but finding someone on there is crazy sometimes.

For those of you who are wanting to get into the dating world, it’s hard out there. Especially for people that have disabilities. Most people on these dating sites are quick to judge, and from my experience is a lot of them instantly think that blind people need to be taken care of. There are also times where people will pretend to like you, then you meet them for the first time and then they either ghost you which means they don’t talk to you ever again, or they pretend to like you for a few weeks or maybe a month, and then they decide to cease further contact. some people just won’t respond to you at all. They may look at your profile, but as far as responding to you? Forget about it. Then there is my personal favorite, LOL. The ones that want that one thing and that one thing only. What I’m talking about, is the S word. Basically, if you don’t want to do this certain thing on the first date they don’t want anything to do with you. Another one of my favorite things is when people ask you the stupidest questions they can think of. LOL. A couple of good examples of this is you can’t see, so how are you reading my texts? Can you send me a picture so I know what you look like? I will send you one back. Like a picture is going to do anything for us blind people. LOL. How do you shave? How do you know what you’re putting on for clothes in the morning? I honestly feel a lot of the reason why us blind folks can’t find that special someone is because a lot of people just don’t understand about our disability. Yes, you can educate them and tell people all you want about how you do things, and you could show them how independent you are but with my personal experiences I found that most of the people I have talk to you on the sites have either never dated a blind person before, or they are afraid to take a chance and date someone who won’t judge them based on how they look, and treat them with The respect they deserve. Some of these profiles are crazy too. I’ve come across to several different profiles that say they want nothing but love, respect, and acceptance, but then when you give them what they want as far as love, respect, and acceptance, you get something totally different in return. You get the your too nice, or you get the people who will only date you because of what you can offer them physically, for example money, or nice things, or other things. Now, like I said before there are some good people on some of these dating sites. For those of you who have met people online, and have had relationships and marriage with these people, congratulations. I am happy for each and everyone of you. For those of you who are still out there searching for that special someone, my advice is don’t give up. Yes, there are some crazy people out there, and there are people who are going to constantly hurt you and make you feel like online dating is a waste of time and nothing but a joke, but there is someone out there for everybody, and I truly believe that if you continue to search you will find that special someone. I don’t know about me personally, LOL. But I’m sure everyone has a right to be with that special person, and when they find that person they will hopefully be non-judge mental, and except you for who you are. :-)

Hi Oliver, subject line says it all. Online dating is not something whacky and weird. The chances are that your friends will probably say 'good on ya' or words to that effect. In my experience it really is important to get a sighted person to take that profile photo for you. A sighted friend is at least someone you can trust who isn't going to stitch you up. Just as, I assume, you'd want to look the part on a face to face date, you'll want to look the part in your picture, so get a friend to do it. I was also a little embarrassed about such things but I'm very glad I had a friend sort out my profile picture for EHarmony. I then added a couple later on - one very interesting one of me in the house of Commons with a pint, I seem to recall - but even if you can't do that you'll know you have a decent profile picture.

By the way, I think it was a couple of posts back that suggested asking a blind person how they are reading messages is a silly question. I actually think it's a very good question. Don't be too harsh on the sighted who, incidentally, are made just as miserable as we are by people not liking them, suddenly ceaseing to send them any more messages, only after one thing, and so on.

I'm going to try off line dating and see how that goes.

Online is good if you have the pacience, I don't. This site is knew so there's no one from the UK and I doubt there will be in the buture.
If there is, great! but I'm going to leave that site alone.

I am actually curious about cupids arrow. I peaked at the site this morning, and found it to be very accessible. Is anyone in the US using it? How have your experiences been so far?

I don’t read all the topic but I’m just wondering if there’s any dating app specially made for blind or low vision people to help meeting each other? I’m in Canada so I don’t know if all the dating apps you mentioned is there also and I found the popular dating apps like tinder not very helpful for meeting people more like me.

The website is very accesssible but you can't delete your account, I really don't like that.

Hello, Recently I noticed that the messaging feature on the facebook dating section seems to be broken. It only gives the times that messages are sent, and voiceover won't read the messages themselves. Has anyone else encountered this problem, and have you found a way around this? Thanks, I hope everyone is well!

Now i'm not in a relationship, but i can say that the truth occasionally helpped me make some solid friendships.

I have been using the Facebook dating app since September 2019 and it was very accessible until recently. now, it is not showing me messages when I go into them. I can read part of them before I go in, but when I open them up it just has the timestamp and no message. Is anyone else having this issue? I tried deleting the Facebook app and reinstalling. I also deleted my profile and re-created it. Neither one helped..

On a different note, I tried hinge the other day, and I can't seem to upload photos into the app. I got one in there somehow, but that's it. I reached out to the company about this but haven't heard back. The app is basically unusable without at least 6 photos uploaded which is understandable, but mildly frustrating simply because it doesn't work with VO. I hope everyone is well!

Hey all! I try to use tinder. It is mostly accessible. But I wasn't able to verify myself by photo. Also I like someone's profile if it has a description. If there is instagram mentioned only I pass it. I cannot find a verification feature anymore on iOS. What is really interesting is that the website is practically completely accessible! Also I didn't find any way to contact them to report accessibility issues, there is no any contact page.

Has anyone heard of meat mindful? It has and app and a website but neither are entirely accessible I’m afraid

Hi,
Just want to give you all my experience of online dating, as well as some dating apps (particularly Tinder).
When it comes to finding that special someone, I do absolutely agree with a lot of people here that it's hard to find that special someone while being blind or visually impaired. Having failed to find a girlfriend for the longest time, this sort of thought always comes up in my mind. A few years ago I met a visually impaired Turkish girl on QC Playroom, but things fell through due to language barriers.
Having made finding a girlfriend one of my wishes this year, I've made at least 2-3 attempts by posting on some Reddit subs dedicated to dating. First time I came across a girl who is also Thai but eventually was let go. Then I came across at least 2 American girls who wanted me to give direct financial help, and seemed to get really upset when I straight off told them that I couldn't.
Now, on to my experience with Tinder, as far as accessibility goes...
From my experience, Tinder is somewhat accessible, I was able to swipe right on profiles, by double-tapping on the buttom-right button, and swipe left on a profile by double-tapping on the bottom-left button. Chatting also works fine, the messages are accessible with VO, and I can type and edit texts just fine using standard VO commands.
Some buttons are a bit weird to work with, for example you need to double-tap and hold the button called 'open profile' or something like that in order to expand the profile and look at the profile description. The buttons for settings, etc are not also being labeled by VO (though I did not try whether screen recognition would make it any better).
But I do agree that, when it comes to online dating (especially during the pandemic where it is hard to meet up physically) accessibility should be given much, much more care. Blind and visually impaired people deserves the right to use these dating apps, just like with sighted people.

Hello,
I am a newbie here having a problem with Facebook Dating Profile setup.
I can get through until the screen on which You choose if You are looking for women, men etc..
On the next screen there is a text about some special settings You have to accept - I am sorry, I am not using Facebook interface in English so I don't know the exact terms, but my problem is that the Accept button is not active.
I tried to set up almost everything to Public in my Facebook profile but it did not help.
iPhone SE 2020, IOS 14.7.1 and the newest version of Facebook App.
Thank You very much for Your kind help.
Martin.

Hi,
I am Yosephina who are doing a study with my group at Hyper Island Sweden, about digital accessibility for people with visual impairments on Online dating app. Our intention is to find better digital solutions for people with visual impairments on Tinder. Therefore we are looking for people that want to participate in an interview.
You don’t need to have used dating app before but it would be nice if you have an interest in online dating. The interviews will preferably take place in Stockholm or online during this week. We will use the information from the interview.
The interview will only be for educational purposes (not in collaboration with any dating app) and we do not publish names, photos or other personal information. If you or anyone close to you has an interest in participating in this survey, please contact me via email: yosephina.huwae@hyperisland.se
Thank you for your time.