People who are blind or have low vision have always been early adopters of technology.
It’s been a gateway to reading, surfing the web and new social worlds.
As a consumer, they have also informed user experience (UX) design and advocated for accessible settings, which have already become in-built in for many devices.
But what lies in the future for accessible app development?
This week on Talking Vision, host Sam Colley speaks to Voxmate app co-developer Gleb Zevkov on accessible technology.
He hopes the app designs of the future look towards becoming more user friendly, universal and intuitive. So people of all age groups, ethnicities and abilities can navigate apps without any training.
“A big thing that's needed going forward next 10 years is some kind of unification in terms of the gestures that we use and the metaphors that we use so that these apps feel cohesive,” he told Talking Vision.
His own app Voxmate works to that principle, initially born out of seeing his co-developer’s father struggling to use screen readers after vision loss.
“Learning all of these gestures is difficult, learning how to use apps, which we have to kind of sense that the button should be somewhere over there and you try to explore, you know, find out where it is, it's very difficult for people,” he said.
Voxmate is designed to be the simplest, most audio-first application out there, according to Gleb.
It gives users easy access a wide range of content and activities, including reading the news, playing games and socialising.
Currently it is only available on Android devices, but development is underway to have it on Apple products within 2022.
Listen to the full interview in the player below: