Accessibility Requests

What I find accessible someone else might not and vice versa. I'd love a bit more advanced categories of discussion happen on here. I'm no expert by any means. yet wading through a podcast where the user is told, one finger double tap to open, when the speech has already communicated this drives me a bit over the edge. i'd love to see the Mac get a helping hand up in non-app store downloads. Yes it is safer for people to use what apple's said is ok to distribute, however I'd like the idea of actually helping out a developer on a website with a free or nominal fee app purchase so even though apple gets it's chunk, the developer is supported. Kinda like when you support your favorite bands by buying from their store, not just the all inclusive iTunes. It's pretty easy to install an app that's not from the app store. Now that i've said that, I am not having much luck installing an app but that's down to my inefficiency from not following the steps one by one. I think I need to be talked through it. The app is the pain in my butt VOCR which I'd love to have on here. That's on my plate though and I admit, I',m the issue here. There is a contributor on here who does sort of expect you know how to use your device, so I'm happy they contribute in such a way. Of course, I recognize everyone's learning style is different.

I get so fed up and tired of having to report bugs with absolutely everything I do. I’m really talking about the Mac more than the iPhoen. It just feels like I am never allowed the time to just enjoy using it any more. So I am definitely up for the idea of trying to collaborate a bit more because it would allow us to share the burdon a bit, and also allow us to add weight behind something.

I’d like the bug tracker on here to be opened up. Even if it’s just for iOS and MacOs bugs it would be good if we could keep track of when the bug started, how many times it has been reported, what severity it has, how many people it affects etc. I’ve no idea when I reported bugs to Apple, but it would add more weight if we could say a bug had been open for x years and been acknowledged by this number of people. I realise you aren’t specifically talking about Apple bugs. But I guess the same rules apply. I think sometimes it also helps just having someone else confirm it because it’s easy to take these things a bit personally.

I agree about there being a bit of a grey area, but I also think that a platform has a certain way of working which sets expectations. So if you can work around something that doesn’t mean that you should have to. If VO+right won’t work but tab will for something, I can probably get used to it, but it’s a bug. If there’s an unimportant unlabelled button or image I can safely ignore, it’s a bug. Just because I’m blind doesn’t mean I can’t desire a decent, consistent user experience just like a sighted person.

But I also accept that, particularly when you are new to a screen reader, it is very hard to know what is a bug vs something you just don’t; know how to do yet. A bug tracker in a friendly place like this might be a good way to help differentiate between the two. That would be much better than launching onto a third party apps’ forum when you don’t know what you are doing.

Regarding the comment about podcasts, I agree that many people don’t really know how to do a demo with a screen reader. They feel like they should be speaking but can just feebly repeat what has already been said. But if that was the worst thing about using a screen reader I’d be a much happier person.

I like this idea and hope it can be implemented on the site. I think it would allow for more and better collaboration with Apple.

Hi,

I'm Brian, and I approve this message. 🤨

Thank you for taking the time to offer this suggestion. I'm certainly open to considering ways that we could improve the bug reporting and tracking functionality on AppleVis so will give some thought to what's been said in this thread.

When the Bug Tracker was first introduced, it originally had a button allowing people to easily report if they were also impacted by a bug. The number of people was displayed on bug entry pages. The intention was to give a indication of how widespread issues were. Unfortunately, engagement with this specific feature was extremely low at the time. As a result, the numbers displayed on bug entries were not an accurate representation of the given bug's true reach (I don't recall any bug entry which had more than a couple of people report that they were encountering the bug). I therefore decided after a couple of years to remove this element to avoid potentially misleading impressions, particularly for people using this information to inform their decision on whether to update the software on their iPhone or Mac.

I'm certainly open to new ideas. However, as the above example demonstrated, any system is only as good as the community participation behind it. Our previous limited attempt did not gain traction and showed how gathering accurate, up-to-date user generated data is a challenge. Get it wrong, and the result can potentially do more harm than good.

I hate sounding harsh and judgemental, but you don't have to look too far around here to find people who misunderstand how something is supposed to work or don't take the time to determine whether something they are experiencing is actually a bug rather than operator error or expected behavior.

How many times do we hear people saying that an OS update has introduced a new bug, only for someone to suggest that they restart their device, and this resolves the problem.

How many times do people find that resetting the settings on their iPhone resolves a number of issues that they had thought were bugs? I include myself here, as my latest reset resolved at least 3 minor issues that I had thought were bugs.

There are also plenty of examples of people posting an app to the site and never updating the entry, despite people commenting that an update to the app has either improved or degraded accessibility of the app. In the case of the latter, I know that the editorial team has a mechanism in place to ask the OP to review their entry, as I've been on the receiving end of an email! 🙉

All of the above to say that I would have major concerns about the reliability of any user-generated information unless there was some form of checks in place to ensure that the information is accurate and up-to-date. Sadly, I have no suggestions as to how any such checks could be implemented. Interesting discussion, though.