Suggestions of improvements for better VoiceOver compatibility

[Piciok]

Hello,

First of all, many thanks for the Octal app. Out of all the available HN clients on the App Store, I find myself coming back to Octal the most and I find the interface very intuitive with all the features and information I need available at hand. As I'm a VoiceOver, Apple's screen reader, user, I came up with a couple suggestions that would make the experience of using Octal even more enjoyable with this accessibility service active. Most of those are based on Dystopia, a third-party Reddit client built with accessibility in mind. Here they are:

1. Currently, each story in the feed consists of a few interactable elements, namely: the story's number in order together with the title and relative time of posting, the domain where the story came from, the username of the poster, the number of upvotes and the number of comments. All of these elements are treated separately by VoiceOver and so in order to get across from one story to the next, the user needs to swipe five times. It would be easier if all of these elements were grouped together as cells of one column in the story's table elements. This way, one swipe would move the focus directly from one story to the next and all of the additional information would be read out directly following the story's title and posting time. In order to allow access to all of the now hidden elements, you could implement Rotor Actions. This way, once the item of a story is focused, the user can simply swipe down for the additional actions such as the story's link, the poster\s profile or the comments section.
2. The same treatment could be applied to the comments section: an unified, one-swipe-per-comment view, with the additional indication of the level the focused comment is on to help the users find their way through nested threads of discussion.
3. It would be useful, and should not take too much time, to see whether all of the buttons are clearly labelled with an accessibility title. The elements missing this attribute would be read out simply as button and the user will not have a clue as to their purpose. From my quick research, there is one such button near the edit field for posting a comment but there may be more, especially in the pro version. Some things that you could look into in the future would be:
4. The ability to customize some accessibility gestures to make performing some actions quicker E.G. the Magic Tap or swiping left and right gestures, example of this in action can be found in the Spring Twitter client.
5. The ability to customize the accessibility experience E.G. by allowing to change the order of the information read out or the rotor actions.

I know this sounds like a lot of work but I hope this ticket can serve as a base to start the discussion as the app is really great. Also these changes can be applied step-by-step and I believe that once the community of VoiceOver users sees your commitment, they will be happy to provide feedback and assistance.

If you're interested to find out what blind users think of Octal, I recommend introducing it on the Applevis forums. I'm sure there are users out there who are familiar with the concept of Hacker News and will find Octal very useful.

Thanks in advance for looking into my suggestions and I look forward to the discussion that hopefully ensues.

All the best and good luck!

[dangwu]

Thank you for these great suggestions. I'm planning to make it once swipe per story/comment first - then go from there with rotors and whatnot

[dangwu]

Fixed in next release. Should be one swipe between stories/comments, with vertical swipes to select custom actions.

[Piciok]

Hello!

I have just gotten the latest update and is the app amazing with VoiceOver now!

Thank you for implementing everything from my list. Browsing HN has never been so much fun! This is going to be an instant recommend to my friends. Thank you for all of the hard work you have put.

I have also purchased the full version!

I was trying to locate the vertical swipe gestures to customize them in the settings but couldn't find them. How do they work at present?

Also, is there a way to collapse comment threads? It would be also great if each comment would indicate its level in relation to the root E.G. level 1, 2 etc. Would that be doable?

Once again thank you!

[dangwu]

Thanks for the support!

I provide the "vertical swipe actions" via UIAccessibilityCustomActions. I'm not sure if there's any customization for that.

Collapse is only possible via Open Menu then swiping to Collapse. I suppose I should add it to the vertical swipe actions to make it easier. Do you agree?

And yes, I can announce the comment level.

On Thu, Jul 6, 2023 at 9:34 AM Piciok @.***> wrote:

Hello!

I have just gotten the latest update and is the app amazing with VoiceOver now!

Thank you for implementing everything from my list. Browsing HN has never been so much fun! This is going to be an instant recommend to my friends. Thank you for all of the hard work you have put.

I have also purchased the full version!

I was trying to locate the vertical swipe gestures to customize them in the settings but couldn't find them. How do they work at present?

Also, is there a way to collapse comment threads? It would be also great if each comment would indicate its level in relation to the root E.G. level 1, 2 etc. Would that be doable?

Once again thank you!

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/dangwu/Octal/issues/262#issuecomment-1623978769, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABHKY32A6QNGM4VV3IBSZBTXO3SJTANCNFSM6AAAAAARRZCYMA . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: @.***>

[Piciok]

Hello and thank you for the explanations.

Yes, that's great! I understand now what you mean. The actions work great. The ability to collapse comment levels or view a certain thread of conversation in a new view which is currently accessible via the context menu would be great as actions too.

It is possible to allow the user to customize the order of actions or whether certain items should be there or not - apps like Dystopia and Mona have done this with great success. Dystopia also allowed for customization of the order in which the cells of the table element were read i.e. author first, then the title, then date, then up-votes and comments or else date first, then title... the possibilities are limitless.

I also would like to report two things I have found yesterday:

1. Sometimes, when leaving the comments' or link view of a given story, the app returns to some older item that was read earlier and it's anchored to it so that the focus falls automatically on that older item instead of the one where we entered. Because of that it is necessary to scroll in order to find the story that we explored last.
2. Would it be possible to include the domain from which a given story came at the end of the readout for a given story, past up-vote and comment counts? Once again, thank you for your support. Below is the link to the Applevis app directory entry regarding Octal. I made it yesterday and Applevis is the largest community of blind and partially sighted users of Apple products. Feel free to join the forums there or comment if you would like to gather more feedback: https://www.applevis.com/apps/ios/social-networking/octal-hacker-news

[dangwu]

I see. That kind of customization is a much larger effort and I can't promise I'll get to that anytime soon. I'm curious which order you prefer though? I"m down for making the current order the most optimal for the average user.

I can definitely fix those 2 bugs though. Thanks for the report and Applevis entry! This is invaluable :)

On Fri, Jul 7, 2023 at 5:57 AM Piciok @.***> wrote:

Hello and thank you for the explanations.

Yes, that's great! I understand now what you mean. The actions work great. The ability to collapse comment levels or view a certain thread of conversation in a new view which is currently accessible via the context menu would be great as actions too.

It is possible to allow the user to customize the order of actions or whether certain items should be there or not - apps like Dystopia and Mona have done this with great success. Dystopia also allowed for customization of the order in which the cells of the table element were read i.e. author first, then the title, then date, then up-votes and comments or else date first, then title... the possibilities are limitless.

I also would like to report two things I have found yesterday:

1. Sometimes, when leaving the comments' or link view of a given story, the app returns to some older item that was read earlier and it's anchored to it so that the focus falls automatically on that older item instead of the one where we entered. Because of that it is necessary to scroll in order to find the story that we explored last.
2. Would it be possible to include the domain from which a given story came at the end of the readout for a given story, past up-vote and comment counts? Once again, thank you for your support. Below is the link to the Applevis app directory entry regarding Octal. I made it yesterday and Applevis is the largest community of blind and partially sighted users of Apple products. Feel free to join the forums there or comment if you would like to gather more feedback: https://www.applevis.com/apps/ios/social-networking/octal-hacker-news

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/dangwu/Octal/issues/262#issuecomment-1625378855, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABHKY3Y5AKPAXYC6CBKTCW3XPABU7ANCNFSM6AAAAAARRZCYMA . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: @.***>