Hi everyone,
I’m hoping to hear from blind or low-vision developers who have real experience building apps or games, especially for iOS or mobile in general.
I’m blind and use VoiceOver on macOS. I’ve been trying to get into app/game development, but I’ve been running into repeated walls with tooling. I don’t mind learning or dealing with errors — that’s part of programming — but I’m struggling with workflows that feel extremely punishing and hard to iterate in accessibly.
So far, I’ve tried:
• Xcode + SwiftUI (got overwhelmed by cascading errors, indentation issues, and difficulty iterating quickly)
• Godot (editor accessibility made it hard to even create a basic scene)
• Web/mobile tooling (npm/Ionic), but setup friction hit me pretty hard when already fatigued
What I want to build is a UI-heavy, text-first, accessible RPG-style game that feels like a mobile app (tabs, screens, menus, etc.). I’m not trying to do heavy graphics or real-time action — more systems, screens, and interaction.
My main questions:
• What tools or stacks have actually worked for you as a blind developer?
• Are there workflows you’ve found that are less punishing and easier to iterate with VoiceOver?
• Do any of you prototype web-first and then package as mobile apps?
• If you’re making accessible games or apps today, what does your day-to-day setup look like?
I’m not looking for “perfect” tools — just something that lets me make progress without constantly hitting walls that kill momentum.
Any advice, experiences, or even “what not to do” would be hugely appreciated.
Thanks for reading.
Comments
Describe some of the problems
What kind of problems are you having with SwiftUI? I have no idea what you mean by cascading errors, or how you find indentation to be a problem. In any case SwiftUI may not be the best option to make games, since it kind of tries to follow Apples design guidelines by default, and that may not be very efficient for a game UI, so and without knowing exactly what you have in mind, my suggestion is to look into SpriteKit, which provides the traditional scene graph game development architecture. I may be able to offer better assistance and even produce code examples if you explain exactly what you are trying to accomplish.
I work with SwiftUI/XCode every day
Please specify what problems do you have. I'm working with SwiftUI on a regular basis. SpriteKit can be tricky to understand for a blind developer, but it's still doable, if you're willing to deal with its quirks.
Since you're aiming for an RPG style text adventure, SwiftUI should work just fine. I would strongly suggest turning off the canvas in XCode, and building your game on a real device. That way you'll be able to explore by touch and get the general idea how your interface is structured. You can also tweak XCode's settings, so that it'll deal with the indentation for you on save/copy/paste etc.
Have fun. And use AI for dealing with images you'll find in tutorials and such. Some of them can be helpful if described.
SwiftUI can be really helpful when prototyping, since it's relatively easy to learn and understand. I would also recommend going through Paul Hudson's blog, since he's written a lot about SwiftUI and iOS development in the first place. And he's quite good at explaining the framework's quirks to the uninitiated. He's not blind, but the way he describes things is clear enough. At least it was for me.
So go one screen at the time and have fun. You'll get the gist of it in no time at all. Some of the error messages can sound strange at first, but you'll deal with them just fine. Just take your time.
Fore learning Swiftui.
Do we still like 100 Days of? That seems to get recommended a lot. Also, do we have a guide for setting up XCode? As an example, what settings would I want to play with to get it to take care of indentation during copy and paste? I ask because I've been thinking of tackling this, so OP's ahead of me a bit. But I don't think I've found anything on dealing with XCode with Voiceover. Like just the basics, you've installed it, now what? There are probably settings you want to change to make it work better for us, I know there were when I set up Logic.
Defaults should do
Not sure about online content since I never stick to a specific source, and am long past initial SwiftUI learning for like half a decade.
Xcode should indent pasted code just fine by default, but if it doesn't, press Command+Comma, go to Editing in the sidebar, press the Indentation button, and enable the Re-indent on Paste switch. Another option to re-indent code is to just select it and press Control+I by default, or going to Editor -> Structure -> Re-indent from the menu bar.