Hey everyone!
A little while ago, I posted an article in which I compared 3 ridesharing-services, one of which was MOIA.
Back then, a lot of MOIA’s features in their app were inaccessible for both VoiceOver and TalkBack users. Booking a ride, for instance, was only possible by suspending VoiceOver/TalkBack and doing a swipe-gesture somewhere near the bottom of the screen; for blind and partially sighted – even fully sighted – people, it only worked with a lot of trial-and-error.
Anyway, MOIA recently released a fully accessible version of their app for iOS and Android! However, that’s not how the story actually began…
On August 29th, MOIA invited a group of blind and partially sighted individuals, including me, to a co-creation day concerning the accessibility of their app for iOS and Android users. We were invited because we all have reported huge accessibility issues in the near past which caused difficulties taking advantage of MOIA’s services. When I received the first email in which they basically thanked me for my feedback telling me that they work hard to make their app more accessible, I was a little skeptic in first place. Therefore, I was truly surprised when I received the invitation to their co-creation meeting! All right then; so what was it about?
After a short introduction round of the MOIA representatives and testers in the room, we split up and – together with one of the developers – tested the app under certain conditions, such as the accessibility with VoiceOver (on iOS) or TalkBack (on Android) and the zooming function for partially sighted users. Our goal was to go through the entire booking process, simulate a virtual ride and eventually end the trip once we arrived at our desired destination. Whereas I went through the booking process of a MOIA ride on an Android device, the MOIA representatives took notes and occasionally asked me questions concerning possible navigation issues, how the design looks to me or – in other words – affects the behavior of TalkBack and how to possibly improve the navigation through the information shown on the screen.
At the end of the day we shared our experiences and opinions and discussed our results in the group.
Eversince September 30th, MOIA now is fully accessible for blind and partially sighted Android and iOS-users! I think I can speak for all of us who took part at the co-creation day when I say that I appreciate the willingness of MOIA to work together with us in order to make their services as accessible as possible for everybody because, cross my heart, people with disabilities that make it impossible operating their own vehicle probably rely on public transport as well as ridesharing-services the most!
A German blog post about the co-creation day can be found here:
https://www.moia.io/de-DE/blog/Einfacher-MOIA-bestellen-fuer-blinde-und-sehbehinderte-Fahrgaeste
Also, check out this Youtube-video (German spoken) by Mr. Blindlife concluding a listing of the past issues as well as a summary of the co-creation day and future accessibility improvements:
Enjoy the ride!
By the way, a little funfact coming up: Normally you always get a ride offer if you choose to depart in 10+ minutes. However, yesterday morning booking a ride was impossible because all MOIAs were busy until further notice. Guess why? It rained cats and dogs; of course nobody felt like walking or going by bike that day! 😛
Nevertheless, I am going to update my ridesharing comparison based on the recent changes as soon as possible.
The way to my personal independence 