Talkin' about the weather: incorporating TalkBack functionality and sonifications for accessible app design

Abstract

As ubiquitous as weather is in our daily lives, individuals with vision impairments endure poorly designed user experiences when attempting to check the weather on their mobile devices. This is primarily caused by a mismatch between the visually based information layout on screen and the order in which a screen reader, such as TalkBack or VoiceOver, presents the information to users with visual impairments. Additionally, any image or icon included on the screen presents no information to the user if they are not able to see it. Therefore we created the Accessible Weather App to run on Android and integrate with the TalkBack accessibility feature that is already available on the operating system. We also included a set of auditory weather icons which use sound, rather than visuals, to convey current weather conditions to users in a fast and pleasant way. This paper discusses the process for determining what features the users' would want and require, as well as our methodology for evaluating the beta version of our app.