May 18
VoiceOver quality-of-life improvements and navigation refinements
First off, I just want to say I’m genuinely impressed with the amount of VoiceOver accessibility already present throughout NotePlan. The VoiceOver hints, markdown guidance, native feel, and rotor support in parts of the sidebar already put the app far ahead of many productivity tools I’ve tested as a blind user.As I continue using NotePlan more heavily, I’ve started building myself an accessibility testing list/folder, and most of what I’m noticing now feels less like major accessibility issues and more like quality-of-life refinements that could make navigation significantly faster and smoother for VoiceOver users.A few examples:Some sidebar elements currently only produce the VoiceOver click sound with no spoken label. If these are decorative, hiding them from VoiceOver could reduce extra swiping before reaching actual content. If interactive, adding labels would help.The timeline view contains a button that VoiceOver currently identifies only through image recognition as “gear.” This likely just needs an accessibility label such as “Timeline settings” or similar.Rotor actions currently appear to work in parts of the top-level sidebar, but not consistently for notes inside folders. Extending rotor actions to folder-level notes would make navigation feel much more consistent.In folder note lists, the note date and note title are currently exposed as separate VoiceOver elements. Combining them into a single grouped element could make navigating large folders much faster and reduce swipe count considerably.Example:Instead of:“May 17 • Sun”then swipe again for the note title, VoiceOver could announce:“[Note title], May 17 • Sun”The editor insertion point issue is still the biggest accessibility challenge I’ve encountered so far, though I understand from previous communication that this may be related to the markdown overlay/editor architecture and may require deeper investigation.If the insertion point/editor issue ultimately turns out to be difficult to fully resolve due to the markdown overlay architecture, one possible accessibility workaround could be optional cursor navigation controls or jump actions for VoiceOver users, such as:- move cursor to top- move cursor to bottom- jump between headings- move cursor left/rightEven temporary navigation aids like these could significantly reduce the amount of line-by-line swiping required in longer notes.Overall though, I’m genuinely excited about how accessible NotePlan already is compared to most productivity apps, and I’m happy to continue testing and sharing feedback as I explore more areas of the app.
Pending