accessibility related bugs with voiceover

[abdullah5490]

Checklist

• [x] I am reporting an issue in existing functionality that does not work as intended
• [x] I've searched for existing GitHub issues

Description

In the issue #14 the voiceover accessibility was provided and that issue was closed, but unfortunately, the accessibility is still requiring too many adjustments in the iOS client.

1. Voiceover does not speak proper labels for many buttons in the interface, such as the "call" button, doesn't have any label and voiceover just said "button". A user could not identify the function of this button by this behaviour. Moreover, When we select the chats, the actions bar containing functions of "read, archive, delete" etc. are not readable. We cannot perform these functions on selected chats while using voiceover. These are just a few example of this kind of bugs with voiceover.
2. In a group conversation, we cannot open the group info screen to view it's members, or files, or set other options on a group.
3. When we select a chat in the main view, the voiceover does not indicate which chat is selected and which is not. It should speak "selected" with the marked items.
4. When we send a message, voiceover does not tell the status of the message whether is it being send, or its sent, or its delivered, or read/play by recipient. This information is very critical and should be presented to the voiceover users as it is for the sighted users.
5. lots of other focus related bugs are present, where the screen changes after pressing certain control, but voiceover curser does not render the newly appear content in gesture navigation. For example, if we want to change the notification tone, we couldn't focus to the available tones after selecting the responded option in the settings to choose from. Similarly, if we click on "compose" in the main windows, the newly popped up screen is not focused and rendered by accessibility service from where we can search for contact to start a new chat.
6. The share menu is not at all accessible when we try to share a link/file from other app like youtube.
7. Do read Comment1 By Simon818, Comment By Nick6489 and Comment2 By Simon818 for few more major accessibility bugs.

Expected Behavior

I've mentioned this along with the problems in above stated 4 points.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Install the latest client from apps store.
2. turn on voiceover and open telegram.
3. now, navigate around the program, the main view of conversation list, press "edit" button and select the chats, it will not tell you that it is now selected or not.
4. Then try to delete chats after selection, you'll not be able to focus to the action bar at bottum.
5. Open any conversation and try to find "call" button, you will not.
6. Open any group conversation and try to open "group info", you will not, with voiceover.
7. in the "chat info screen", try to navigate between "files, members, links or voice messages" view with voiceover, you can't do this.
8. in the main windows, simply try to start a new chat with "compose" button. You'll not be able to select/search contacts on that screen.
9. go to youtube, open a video, click "share" and choose telegram. You'll not be able to navigate within the telegram sharing screen here.

Environment

Device: iPhone/iPad X

iOS version: 13.X

App version: 7.X

[sv5786]

Certainly hoping the accessibility bugs should be addressed soon, have reported plenty of times, but indeed got no response note the android application does not have these issues particularly, it's only iOS

[abdullah5490]

in addition to the point number 2 above, if we manage to go in the "group info" somehow, we cannot navigate the different sections there like photos, media, files etc. because these items could not be focussed with voiceover accessibility curser in navigation. Even more, if we click on any of these by an idea (such as files), the screen would display the files list of the current group, but we cannot read or navigate to them using voiceover.

[AbdullahZubair]

Well, these issues should have to address by telegram. indeed this is the only one who's providing us every possible service without celling our data to companies. And we want to use it, we want to switch our communities on telegram. so kindly consider fixing these issues reported by @abdullah5490

[giogus]

Can I work on these enhancements?

[abdullah5490]

@giogus from whom you are asking? Of course, if you can! Someone should work on this!

[kranid]

please pay attention to this issue!

[giogus]

Do you all mind to sharing the improvements we should focus to improve by the priority?

Example:

• [ ] (High/Med/Low Priority) Make the "Call" button accessible.
• [ ] (High/Med/Low Priority) Make the "Read" button accessible (located in the action bar).
• [ ] (High/Med/Low Priority) Make the "Archive" button accessible (located in the action bar).
• [ ] (High/Med/Low Priority) Make the "Delete" button accessible (located in the action bar).

I want to help with these improvements, and I think the best way to work on that is by making these improvements incremental.

Thank you! 😉

[abdullah5490]

@giogus (High) make the group info, or contact info screen accessible, which appears upon clicking on the title of the opened conversation window. The information like group name, group link, contact username, group members list, available media, available files, are not accessible properly for voiceover user and we can't perform any further action on them. (High) make adjustments to the messages view, so the screen reader "voiceover" should:

1. When we focus a message, it should tell whether its an incoming message from other side, or outgoing message from my side.
2. Indicate the type of message like text, voice, an audio/video or other file.
3. Along with reading of message text/or/duration, it should tell the status of outgoing message properly whether its sent, delivered, scene, or played (in case of voice note). (Medium) make the action bar accessible which appears after selecting one or multiple conversations, or selecting messages inside a conversation. Its better to encorporate quick actions directly into voiceover's roader. (Low) Make adjustments to settings screen to provide accessibility. currently, many of controls under settings, and the sub-sections of settings are not handelable with voiceover.

[alexarnaud]

I've exactly the same issues, I use WhatsApp instead of Telegram because I can't use Telegram confidently with VoiceOver. I also hope to be able to use Telegram for chat.

@giogus I suppose labeling the first button will be complicated because you'll need to find the function for that but after that I hope it will be just calling the right function.

Many thanks for your proposal to help on this.

[misteu]

Hey there, I'd like to start working on these issues. I think nobody is currently working on it, right? I will go through the list by @abdullah5490

Best regards, Michael

[abdullah5490]

i’ll be very thanksful if you do something for these issues.,

On August 28, 2020 11:06:41 PM misteu [email protected] wrote:

Hey there, I'd like to start working on these issues. I think nobody is currently working on it, right? I will go through the list by @abdullah5490

Best regards, Michael

-- You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/Telegram-iOS/issues/267#issuecomment-683014545

[alekssamos]

Hey. how are you? How is it going? turns out? is work being done now and when to expect improvements? this is important for us, for the blind! E.G.: quote from r/Telegram

Hello there! I am a teacher who uses telegram to interact with students in groups. One of my students is blind and uses iOS. He is complaining that Telegram lacks accessibility for the blind. He says that he receives notifications but can’t access the messages nor respond. He also argues that this process is seamless in WhatsApp. Is there anything we can do to improve his experience? I really do not want to use WhatsApp.>

[misteu]

Hi there, sorry for not getting back to you until now. I did not find the time yet to tackle this task because of some personal reasons. I hope to find some time to start working on it this weekend :)

[abdullah5490]

Let we keep expecting some betterment on it's way very soon, as its very critical and important for telegram usage on iOS.

[misteu]

Hi, today I wanted to start. Unfortunately it is quite hard to get started because how to build the app is documented pretty bad.

The Readme file is pretty light and misleading regarding this. As a consequence, I was not able to build the app yet. So I cannot guarantee anything at this moment.

See also this issue: https://github.com/TelegramMessenger/Telegram-iOS/issues/377

[Deon588]

Any update on IOS accessibility progress?

[kranid]

No, at least i do not see any progress.

[Simon818]

With the jump from WhatsApp to Telegram by many people, it is absolutely critical that blind people have equal access to this app. I've spent quite a long time documenting various bugs with volunteer support and posting about this in various places, and while things do occasionally get fixed, there are many that haven't. I can confirm the ones mentioned in the original issue, and will add a few:

• When a passcode is set, VoiceOver can't read the numbers on the keypad, so we have to guess where they are based on their relation to the other numbers.
• Scrolling through messages is very frustrating. We should be able to use three fingers to scroll, much like a sighted person could use a single finger. However, Voiceover does not provide any feedback when doing this, and often it doesn't scroll at all.
• Somewhat related to my last item, VoiceOver has gestures to move to the next or previous item on screen. You do this by swiping left or right with a single finger. When doing this, the message and conversation views don't automatically scroll; instead VoiceOver just moves on from the visible messages and starts reading the top and bottom controls.

One of the unfortunate consequences of items 2 and 3 is that it is extremely difficult to scroll through a large group. Normally, we could repeatedly swipe up with three fingers to eventually reach the end, or we could use the scrollbar on the right to quickly jump to the bottom. If there is a scrollbar or a button to jump to the bottom, VoiceOver doesn't pick up on either of those.

The single thing keeping so many of us on WhatsApp is its almost flawless accessibility. And the fact WhatsApp does this one thing better than Telegram is honestly sad. I'd love to see this get some attention. I know it can't happen tomorrow, or next week, but hundreds of us have been waiting years and seen very little change.

[marrie]

I've also contacted telegram support about this. I can think of one other issue.

go to the group or chat, and tap info, then media and links. At the time when I did report this, none of the links and images and media files uploaded to the group were actually labeled. I reported this back in 2016 and again in 2017 and again in 2019 with no response from the support team. Signal and what's app both do a better job. come on telegram, catch up and do bettter, please?

[AbdullahZubair]

Indeed, we are shifting from Whats app to telegram, but it seems that telegram do not want us. I've already tried with different channels, even from an official channel as well. but they are not ready to listen.

I hope Telegram will listen to us, and give us the chance to explore this amazing platform.

Cheers,

--

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[amirsol81]

It seems that accessibility doesn't even have a backseat position for Telegram. So many access-oriented reports on various communication channels, and such a disappointing progress. It's not encouraging to say the least.

[jadesharp1992]

I completely agree with all of this! I was in a few groups on telegram, but they have all dispanded now due to the inaccessibility of the IOS client. I am on the beta of it on testflight and have left lots of feedback, but it just gets ignored. If you have an iphone that supports screen recognition, you can turn that on and it makes the settings screen somewhat accessible, but it still isn't fantastic. Really hope we can see some improvements soon!

[musicman5464]

I've noticed these accessibility issues as well and have sent the support team numerous emails asking them to be fixed. I have yet to receive any form of response. This is not what I would call encouraging in the slightest. @misteu and the rest of the telegram team, do better, please. You've a user base here who would love to use your app with as much confidence as their sighted colleagues, and yet they cannot do so. I am disappointed. I understand that sometimes, life gets in the way and simply cannot be ignored. But these issues have been around for a rather long period of time.

[guilevi]

Thank you so much to everyone who volunteered to work on these issues! As a VoiceOver and Telegram user myself, I face these problems daily and really hope they can get addressed soon. Thank you as well, @abdullah5490, for the detailed report!

[burakyuksek]

Hello, I, too, like many of the blind people here, thank the people who volunteer. I hope for those issues to be resolved. The settings section seems to be a little accessible, I could do everything except setting a profile picture by fittling around a bit. Of course there is way to go. About chatting, I can manage with chatting like one person, but if I were to join a group, there is no way I can keep up by manually scrolling with three fingers. I agree with the issues that @abdullah5490 has reported. Thanks once again.

[Nick6489]

I should also like to note a few quality of life points...

• The tabs across the bottom are not proper tabs, but buttons, and very small ones at that.
• The same size problem also shows up with the back button for messages.
• Interestingly, earlier versions of Telegram, from around 2018, got this right. The interface was very WhatsApp-ish, but was quite a bit more accessible. In the years I've been using Telegram since, accessibility has gotten worse, not better. I hope this adds something. In my opinion, the developers might actually be able to get a good idea of best practices from their earlier code, not even from outside sources.

[mikolysz]

Blind person here, I confirm all of the above. At this point, the only way to use Telegram for us is through an unofficial Windows app called Unigram, or by getting an Android device. More and more groups are switching to Telegram these days, making blind people unable to participate. This sometimes puts us in very disadvantaged positions (imagine not being able to read/follow any conversations of your fellow college students, particularly during remote learning). Please fix this as soon as possible, as we're suffering from this issue.

[misteu]

I've noticed these accessibility issues as well and have sent the support team numerous emails asking them to be fixed. I have yet to receive any form of response. This is not what I would call encouraging in the slightest. @misteu and the rest of the telegram team, do better, please. You've a user base here who would love to use your app with as much confidence as their sighted colleagues, and yet they cannot do so. I am disappointed. I understand that sometimes, life gets in the way and simply cannot be ignored. But these issues have been around for a rather long period of time.

@musicman5464 just to make sure: I am NOT part of the Telegram team. I just stumbled across these issues and I want to help as an open source contributor. Unfortunately, I was unable to build the project in XCode until now because it has a quite complicated build system I have never worked with before.

I am trying to build again right now, it looks more promising than the last time I tried to do that.

If I finally can build the project I will try to work on the bugs all of you described.

[ali-fareed]

@misteu the build instructions have been updated.

[abdullah5490]

I've created this issue on March31 last year, and after 10months, we are seeing nothing practically in telegram app. I'm wondering that third-parties are developing telegram clients on the ground title of "accessibility", and they are selling telegram's free services through their own clients just because of better accessibility in their software. If third party developers can do accessibility implementations, then why not the official telegram developers are doing the same? One of the major example of such client is "bright guide" which is based on telegram service, is more accessible for voiceover users as well, but we cannot send voice messages without getting paid subscription for the application. Now, voice messages are free in telegram, why we need to pay for such a basic feature just because of we need accessibility, and the official developers are not serious in improving things for us? This is too much disappointing approach indeed in the era of informational age of 21st century where everyone must have equal rights to access contents all over the technological medium. I, once again, repeat my request to @giogus @misteu and generally to all primetime developers that please, give some promising efforts to make things easier for our community. If we have to pay for those third-party clients to get accessibility support, we'll pay that amount to you for improving accessibility in official version of telegram (if you need it). I've also mentioned the comments of @Simon818 and @nick6489 in my issue for adding their explained problems to the existing report. At the end, I would like to request everyone like @sv5786 @AbdullahZubair @kranid @mikolysz @burakyuksek @guilevi @musicman5464 @jadesharp1992 @amirsol81 @marrie @Deon588 and all other telegram users to please spread this issue# everywhere in your circle to bring more and more people's attention over here for powering our voice and include this issue in your own efforts to convey this message to telegram team to make them listening. And if anything is still missing from the report, you can comment here or contact me directly and i'll definitely include those points with your reference in this issue.

Thanks and best regards.