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I wish there was a rating below bad. I've submitted feedback several times about this web app, and none of the objectively bad design choices have been addressed, but somehow it's now worse. To name just a few of the many problems I had trying to make a simple phone call,
1. I couldn't get the devices popup to work in Firefox at all--it just would not appear. Maybe that's my Firefox, but it doesn't seem to work in a fresh install either.
2. The devices popup is a nested dialog within the existing dialog. The devices list within that devices popup is another nested dialog. Keyboard focus is never actually shifted to the new dialog, even though this is absolutely something that can be done. The devices all have the word "select" before their names as an accessibility label. This is horrible. Why are these not just combo boxes?
3. In this very screen where I rate the app, the buttons to open the rating selectors are not actually buttons anymore. They're clickable controls with the words "actions available" in their labels, and there's no comma separation, so you get labels like "excellent actions available". This practice of adding control types and other information into the label itself is very common throughout the app, but also, I'm on a windows desktop. That's a message I expect to hear on iOS in native apps, and VoiceOver speaks it automatically. I can't think of any scenario where those words should be added into the label of a control on iOS, let alone on the web. Looking at the iOS counterpart, there are no actions whatsoever, and the rating controls are a basic "adjustable" that is far more efficient than the web version. Why am I seeing this label on a website, and why are these no longer buttons?? Finally, we have more nested dialogs whenever you try to pull up the list of ratings.
4. When I tried to submit this rating on the web, I got a message that said "something went wrong, please try again." Predictably, this repeated every time I "tried again". I know this is a losing battle, but these unhelpful error messages just make everyone's life worse. Now I can't tell support what happened, support can't tell development what happened, and it won't get fixed until a developer can reproduce it.
Why does an app from a company who primarily serves blind people have such a poor keyboard experience and so many accessibility hacks? It's usable, and that's about the only good thing I can say about it.
1. I couldn't get the devices popup to work in Firefox at all--it just would not appear. Maybe that's my Firefox, but it doesn't seem to work in a fresh install either.
2. The devices popup is a nested dialog within the existing dialog. The devices list within that devices popup is another nested dialog. Keyboard focus is never actually shifted to the new dialog, even though this is absolutely something that can be done. The devices all have the word "select" before their names as an accessibility label. This is horrible. Why are these not just combo boxes?
3. In this very screen where I rate the app, the buttons to open the rating selectors are not actually buttons anymore. They're clickable controls with the words "actions available" in their labels, and there's no comma separation, so you get labels like "excellent actions available". This practice of adding control types and other information into the label itself is very common throughout the app, but also, I'm on a windows desktop. That's a message I expect to hear on iOS in native apps, and VoiceOver speaks it automatically. I can't think of any scenario where those words should be added into the label of a control on iOS, let alone on the web. Looking at the iOS counterpart, there are no actions whatsoever, and the rating controls are a basic "adjustable" that is far more efficient than the web version. Why am I seeing this label on a website, and why are these no longer buttons?? Finally, we have more nested dialogs whenever you try to pull up the list of ratings.
4. When I tried to submit this rating on the web, I got a message that said "something went wrong, please try again." Predictably, this repeated every time I "tried again". I know this is a losing battle, but these unhelpful error messages just make everyone's life worse. Now I can't tell support what happened, support can't tell development what happened, and it won't get fixed until a developer can reproduce it.
Why does an app from a company who primarily serves blind people have such a poor keyboard experience and so many accessibility hacks? It's usable, and that's about the only good thing I can say about it.
Jamie Teh
in reply to Simon Jaeger • • •Sensitive content
Robert Kingett
in reply to Jamie Teh • • •Sensitive content