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Is Fasten Fascinating?
Fasten is a new ride sharing service that has moved to Austin to help fill the void from Lyft and Uber, but is Fasten accessible?
Fasten Accessibility
Fasten is the latest app to offer ride sharing in Austin and When I downloaded the app I was able to sign up, set my start and destination, and even see the fare estimate, which makes this app quite accessible with VoiceOver. The main issue currently with Fasten is that their request a ride button is not seen by VoiceOver.
Fasten has a neat looking button that says, “Slide to request,” which VoiceOver does not see. This is a custom control that VoiceOver can’t find on the screen but looks just like the iOS Slide to unlock slider on the lock screen.
This issue actually keeps VoiceOver users from requesting a ride from Fasten, and I think that this service would be very popular if this button was accessible.
I also found that the menu button only says, “Button,” and when you rate your driver many items are not visible, and others just say button.
Conclusion
Fasten is a great app and I think it will be my go to service of choice. The fares are cheaper than others, and the drivers are great If you sign up you get a code that you can give to your friends and their rides will give you credit towards your own rides. Because this is my site I am putting my code here. When you sign up, use the code Mi8826
Keep checking back here at iAccessibility for updates on the accessibility of the Fasten app and on other ride sharing services and feel free to leave comments and feedback about these articles.
First Look: Ride Austin
There have been many new ridesharing services to enter Austin since Lyft and Uber have left us, but one stands out and may be the one service to rule them all. Ride Austin is an app developed by local Austin tech companies and the app is a nonprofit service. The developers have promised that the service would be open source so that other cities could use it to develop their own ride sharing hubs.
Ride Austin Accessibility
Even though the service for Ride Austin is not in place you can still download the app, and I did this to check out if the app is accessible. I was able to fully sign up for the service using Facebook, get and enter a verification code from my text messages, and explore the app without any issues with VoiceOver. The menu at the top left was accessible, and the button telling me that there was no drivers available was also accessible.
The company has not added the portion for a payment method yet, so we will have to wait and see how accessible this part of the app will be, but it is interesting to note that the Ride Austin app is more accessible than Get Me, or FARE. Both Get Me and FARE are for profit apps, and that is why it is interesting that a nonprofit app works better than the others.
Conclusion
Ride Austin is a new service, and it will start operating in June. I suggest that you sign up for the service and show the developers that you are interested in what they have to offer. Ride Austin is a fully accessible app, and lets all speak up and let the developers know that we appreciate this level of detail. Ride now will start with rides downtown and at the airport in June, and will move around the city from there after they see how well the service works.
Is FARE Fair?
Many companies have swooped in to the Austin area to pick up the slack that Lyft and Uber have left, but as we always do here at iAccessibility, we must ask if we can use that app for that, and if Fare is fair.
App Accessibility with FARE
A few weeks ago I reviewed Get Me for iOS, and we determined that their app had no VoiceOver accessibility and riders could not even request a ride. FARE is a lot different in this regard. With FARE, a rider can request a ride and see all details about their ride. I did find some text fields complicated and some buttons are not well labeled, but these are issues that the company could easily fix. I think the only buttons I found that were not accessible were buttons to see what kind of car you would pick and they went in order from standard, premium and SUV from left to right. I was able to request a ride and get an estimate, which turned out to be more than the actual ride was, which is something new from an app like this.
FARE also has a few good perks that Lyft, Uber and Get Me does not have. FARE lets you set preferred drivers, and you can even schedule rides in advance. I think these features make them above the standard ride share. They also have no surge pricing which is a major plus. I was able to go through the app and view all of these features with VoiceOver with very few accessibility issues. Unlike other apps, the menu icon is on the top right instead of the top left.
Once you have finished your ride you will be promoted with a tip screen. Here you can say if you would ride with that driver again, set preferred, and tip. You can also see your total price, and they will even show you an itemized receipt so you can see how they charged you, which is just awesome.
One button that needs to be fixed is the ETA button. VoiceOver only reads eTA, and the timer does not update for sighted users as well. While using the app I kept seeing 11 minutes until my driver picked me up.
Besides a few badly labeled buttons, my only other complaint is that there is no Apple Pay support or even support for PayPal. I would like to see their service use more of these as they are more secure payment methods.
Conclusion
While there are some bugs and issues with FARE, the app is far more accessible than Get Me, and it turns out to be cheaper as well. I was even surprised to see a Lyft driver that I previously had on Lyft pick me up on FARE, so I totally added him to my preferred list.
Get Me some Accessibility
With everything that has happened in Austin and with other cities with ridesharing, we find ourselves without the services we come to rely on and must attempt to use similar services to fill the void. Get Me, a service supported by the City of Austin, is one such service, but is Get Me’s app accessible?
Accessibility of Get Me
If you have read the title of this article then you already know the answer to the above question. Get Me for iOS has absolutely lousy accessibility, and that is not a subjective opinion. Lets start at the signup process.
While I am a low vision user that uses magnification, I attempted to sign up with Get Me with VoiceOver. I filled out much of the information until I reached the portion where they ask for your card method. This does not include Apple Pay or anything like that, but only a card. There is only one text box, which changes when you enter certain information in there. Once you enter your debit card number, they want the expiration date which is 4 numbers. they then want your CVV and then your zip code but this information is not spoken to the user as you enter it. I have heard that there is a way to take a picture of the card, which may be easier for some than entering the numbers without knowing what to enter when.
Once I signed up (using vision) I was presented with two buttons that are badly labeled. They are Home Delivery 2 and Home Ride 2. These are the buttons where you pick if you want something delivered to you, or if you want to get a ride. Obviously, these buttons are badly labeled, and should be changed.
Requesting a ride is impossible with VoiceOver The only things VoiceOver can find on the request a ride screen are the cancel button, and the title of the screen. VO does not see any buttons on the screen, such as where to enter the pickup or destination address, where to pick the type of ride, or even the request button. These all appear to be standard iOS controls, but Get Me does not seem to be using a standard method for creating their app for iOS, which will require them to invest a LOT of time in making their app accessible.
Conclusion
While the City of Austin might find the Get Me service to be an alternative to Lyft and Uber, it is not an accessible alternative to blind and low vision users. When using VoiceOver, a person needing a ride would need to have sighted assistance in requesting a ride, which is not an alternative by any means.
Square Cash for Android with Talkback
Last week I had the chance to play with Square Cash for Android. Square Cash is an app for iOS and Android that lets its users send money between users without each party incurring a fee. Cash for iOS has been relatively accessible, allowing blind and low vision users the ability to send money effectively with VoiceOver, but can people do the same with Android and Talkback? Unfortunately, the answer is no.
Accessibility issues
Talkback for Android works very much like Talkback for iOS, but it can’t work with everything. iOS has a very strict development cycle and apps can either be native apps or web based apps. Companies can make inaccessible apps for iOS with custom controls, but they literally have to work at it to make apps really unaccessible. Unfortunately, Android in its design, encourages fragmentation. This means that developers are encouraged to build apps in as many ways they can imagine, and many developers don’t realize that when they do this they don’t allow for Talkback to find all elements in their app, which is the problem with Square Cash.
Cash does contain elements that Talkback can find, but when you see a number pad to enter your phone number, and eventually the amount to send Talkback just sees an empty area. This is because an edit field is active, and a keyboard is expected. Talkback on the device I was using could only see the edit field and that was it. Talkback could not find the custom buttons Cash uses to enter numbers, so that means that a person with no vision would not be able to set up their Cash app, or be able to send or request money from people.
Conclusion
While apps and technology continue to improve there are still apps that we just can’t use with screen readers at this point. Square Cash is one of these apps on the Android side, and hopefully SquareUp will work to make this app more accessible in the future, or Talkback will be updated to support the custom controls in the Cash app.
Square Cash – Google Play
Echo Accessibility
In 2014, Amazon released the beta version of its Echo device that lets users speak and get answers to questions. The Echo seems to be Amazon’s version of Siri, but with a few features Siri does not have.
I just purchased an Echo, and have loved my experience with this device. The Echo will always listen to what’s going on, and it will listen to the code word that is set. I kept mine set to Alexa. I can say things like, “Alexa, what is the weather today?” or, “Alexa, continue reading my book.” which would then have Alexa continue reading my Kindle book. This is one of my favorite features, because I like getting books for my Kindle Voyage, but I sometimes would just like to listen to the book, and Alexa makes this possible. It does get a bit annoying as they promote Audible each time you start reading a Kindle book, but it doesn’t take long before Alexa starts reading again.
The one thing that Amazon could do better with this device is to create a better Echo app. You have to do all setup in the Echo app, but the app layout could be made better especially in the skills section.
Conclusion
While there are many personal assistants out there, the Amazon Echo stands above the rest with its features and personality. They also have a great speech synthesizer built in that provides more inflection to words that make the device have some of the best human sounding speech that is out on the market right now.