Opinion, what’s your views on WhatsApp accessibility?

It depends on what operating system you're using it on.

I mainly use it on iOS and windows and for my use case it works quite well.

I hear the mac version isn't that great, but I can't comment on that because I don't have a mac.

Hey Dominic, to kick off the conversation, you should share your own thoughts and experiences with using WhatsApp. Specifically, have you encountered any challenges or limitations with accessibility? And what do you think WhatsApp could do to improve its accessibility features? Sharing your own insights will help spark discussion.

I find WhatsApp very accessible and everything works well for me.
I use it to chat with friends and also in a couple of groups and all good.
I also use WhatsApp to place voice and occasionally video calls and to receive said types of calls.
For me all of the above use case works perfectly.

For the most part I find it excellent. They're implemented actions really well which helps a lot. It's better with VoiceOver on iPhone than it is with TalkBack on Android.
The only issue really is that in groups, as you said, it speaks the name and number for people who are not in your contacts, which can really slow down reading through messages.
I wonder why do you ask though? Are you having problems with the app?

Hi.
I can say that the mac version is much better than what is use to ;.
It is mostly accessible and works well for me.
I'm using a 2017 21.5 inch imac.

For me, it is accessible and works well with Windows and IOS, but it's way too verbose on IOS, saying the numbers and names of people which are not in my contacts etc, but other than that it's fine.

If you join too many groups with loads of randoms who are not in your contact list then be sure, your sin will find you out, as it says in the book of Numbers. That's quite clever for this time of the afternoon, isn't it? I also find the numbers thing rather annoying but apart from that, it's great. Let us know how it works on that other chap's old phone you now own.

For me WhatsApp is good.
There is an update that solve the problem with reading the number of users group.
It took a long time to solve it.
I'm using Braille display and wen I use a Braille Display there are spaces also in post on facebook app.

The only thing I can think of as far as improvement in the ios app is, you cant always use braille screen input to type. I.e, if your in the chats main window and double tap on the search field to search for a chat or contact... You won't be able to use braille screen input, you will, but it won't actually type in the field, it'll just search for items I.e, type s, you'll see things like, next keyboard, videos, chats etc, it'll just do the function you can use where you start typing say, the name of an app or control. Other than that though, it’s good, though this bug has been around for quite a while now. Not a dealbreaker by any means, but it is annoying.. Also, I wish when your in chat's where you have people who aren't in your contacts list, whats app or voiceover wouldn't announce the entire number as its quite a long read jjust to read the message, it should just be message from, whatever name they set in their whatsapp and what they wrote, imo, but not sure if this is a whats app or a voiceover thing to address.

I wanted to share my thoughts on WhatsApp and its accessibility, especially when using VoiceOver. I actually love using WhatsApp! It’s accessible, and I find the messaging and calling features work really well with VoiceOver. Everything is easy to navigate, which makes staying in touch a breeze. However, there’s one thing that I’m not too fond of: the requirement to use your phone number. I keep hearing whispers about them possibly implementing a username feature, but honestly, I’m not sure when that will happen. They’ve been talking about it for years now, and nothing has come of it yet. Also, it’s a bit of a downside that in group chats, everyone can see your phone number. It would be nice to have a bit more privacy in that aspect. But aside from those points, I really do enjoy the app. It’s those few issues that hold it back for me. Plus, it's super popular where I live, so it's kind of hard to get rid of it, for, you know, both business and personal uses. I think that the layout is clean, simple, not too over the top. I don't pay attention to the community aspects, or the stickers, so I can't really talk about that. It's not perfect, but for calling and messaging, it works well enough.

Hey Winter Roses,

Did you ever see the guide I posted a while back, instructing on how to create a WhatsApp account with a private Google Voice number? I will try to find and repost that here if I can for convenience sake. 🙂

Here is a guide for using WhatsApp without your cellphone number. Enjoy. 😊

https://www.airdroid.com/parent-control/whatsapp-without-phone-number/

So, I am using BSI Command mode as much as possible on latest IOS, but, whatsapp search results aren't accessible. They aren't red out by VO at all.
The BSI 2 finger swipe right, or, 3 finger swipe up to send message gesture doesn't work.
Navigating message list is not seemless. I have to navigate through forward buttons and what not before actually reading the message. My suggestion would be to hide everything accept the actual message from tab order, utilize screen reader accessibility actions as much as possible.
VO also announces "Message" before everything. In group chats, it's helpful to know who's the message is from, but, it need not actually say the word "Message before everything. For example, Rather than saying: "Message from Brad: Hi hello Goodmorning!", may be it can save some time by saying: "Brad: Hi hello Goodmorning!".
The updates tab is a bit tricky to navigate. Often I want to utilize VO's builtin describe feature, but, I am never sure if my focus is on the image posted in the status, or, it's on that next/previous button.
I probably have more, will add them here as I remember them.

Being part of Meta, I think that whatsapp picture recognition should be integrated somehow on whatsapp as it is on facebook and instagram, at least give a simple description of the picture or the sticker because we can't interact with our people when they use stickers for example, and voiceover doesn't give enough description of them.
Also I hate when voiceover focus moves from top to bottom when I have a lot of unread messages in a conversaton, it is not reliable and behabes weird.

Hey guys!
I use WhatsApp on Windows and Android.
On Windows, accessibility is great, even more so if we use the WhatsApp plus add-on with NVDA.
On Android, the situation is very sad and I would like it to be the same as on iOS.
My biggest problems are Navigating through a conversation, jumping from message to message. It takes 3 swipes or more to do this, whereas on iPhone and Windows it's just a swipe or an arrow. It gets worse in groups. Another problem is that it doesn't tell you who sent the message in an individual conversation, whether it's me or the other person, so I have to remember who sent it.

Until Meta is willing to add Custom Actions to their Android apps (which seems to be easy enough) thanks to the Accessible Android article entitled How to Add Custom Accessibility Actions to Android Apps with Java and Kotlin, your best bet is using the Commentary/Jieshuo Screen Reader and switching to one of the 'Alternative Gesture' schemes. Back in the day I remember Meta having an accessibility group, and people complained at the time. If you do wish to share feedback with Meta, you can do so here PS. My above reply could have gone in the Android forum. If so, I shall move it there if necessary.

@SeasonKing
The bsi swipe gesture to send messages does work perfectly well for me, only on my new iphone 14 though. This gesture is mysteriously broken on my old xs which I don't have patience to reset now, but you might wanna give it a try. I know how psychologically difficult it can be to reset a phone much more than a windows or a mac, but it corrects a lot of weird specific bugs only you seem to have.
@Kushal Solanki
How do you use the mac version? I still find it a bit difficult to navigate. Whatsapp the app or the web app?

Generally speaking, I always thought whatsapp has the same level of accessibility on both mobile os. Sorry to hear that android friends! :)

I definitely think that WhatsApp needs to give us the option to have two accounts on one device. I don't think that's asking for too much. I feel like every service should have this. Remember back in the day when Facebook and Instagram said that you could only have one profile? Yeah, now they are practically telling us to create secondary profiles under one main account. We need that same energy on WhatsApp. Unfortunately, I can't get a Google voice number since I'm not in The United States. I could probably download text now since I created a US App Store account, but, yeah. Not sure if that would work, or not. Wait, never mind. It doesn't work, unless you're in Canada, or America. I would love to have a secondary account on ‎WhatsApp, but I only have one device, and I don't really want to change my primary mobile number since everybody already has it. I still don't want to give out my number though, so I guess I'm stuck for now. I hate it so much. Sometimes, you meet someone, and because the app is very popular here, they instantly want your number to connect with you on WhatsApp, but then you give them your number, at least, for me, and I realize I don't actually like this person after a couple days. Yeah, I could block them, but they still have my number, and some people tend to become super annoying and persistent, where they give out your number or keep calling you from other Phones, and it's annoying. It shouldn't have to be one or the other. Come on, it's 2024. This foolishness shouldn't still be happening.

I can't reset this phone just yet, I use it for my work and navigating around the city, making payments. Those payment apps take a hell lot of time and patience to setup again.
FYI, same issue is there with MS Teams as well.
I've observed that lot of issues with BSI are getting fixed randumly on the fly. Say getting stuck in status-bar for example. Pressing S would land me in status-bar, and apart from going to home/recent, I couldn't really get my focus back to the opened app window. Today, suddenly, while being in Status-bar, I pressed S again, and it brought me back to my app window. Pressing lower I/E also helps in this regard sometimes.
Apologies for going on a tangent.
Here's hoping that the swipe to send would also start working for me just like this.

My apologies. I did not consider that you weren't in the US when I posted above. If I come across an alternative that is designed to work in your region, I will definitely post about it here. 😅