Android Question Google dinged my app for accessibility

Scotter · Dec 14, 2018

Hi -

I've published my first app on the Google Play Store; Play to Evolve (a card game).

Well... it seems to be semi-published. Like I can't find it searching the store but I do have a link given to me by Google in the Developer Panel.

One issue is that they haven't approved my "identity" and bank account yet.

Another issue that I actually don't think is causing a big problem but is very important to me and I do want to address it for the following reasons:
(a) I wonder if my "accessibility ranking" at least influences how high up my app will appear in searches? I don't know this for sure and am happy to hear ideas.
(b) I have a semi-blind friend who would really like to use my app. I know some things I can do manually, like making buttons bigger and contrast higher, etc. But I'd really like to know what I don't know, ha! Like if there are functions that maybe allow the user to put the entire app in some kind of "accessibility mode" with certain kinds of features like zoom or text-to-audio or something.
I'm just shooting in the dark here with guesses. I'd love to hear ideas or be pointed to information on this so I can add it to my app!

Thank you! Oh and to see the app I'm talking about so you can advise me on accessibility ideas:
(I understand the rest of this message might be better placed in the forum you created for people to share their apps, but it is necessary for people to play with the app in order to answer my above questions, so I hope you can make an exception here or tell me how I could do this better, thanks! I am going to post the text below in that forum, right now.)

Here is the latest version of my APK here for your perusal and advice.
Card Game: Play To Evolve - increase your emotional intelligence by playing a card game based on NVC
The free APK: dropbox link but you don't need dropbox to download the file
Direct link on the Google Play Store: [removed for now because of incompatibility lies- I mean- issues]
Direct link on Amazon Store: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07LCV8DLZ/

FYI This is a fully functional, bug-free, zero needed permissions card game I put on the market for $0.99 but you it's yours to keep and I believe if you find it on the Google Play Store, you will then get it for free because you have the APK already. My knowledge of how the Google Play Store works is limited and I only say that above because of what a friend told me when they went to the app on the Google Play Store and saw it was free for them. It's either because they had the APK or because Google hasn't approved my bank account yet. If you know the answer, please share with me! So that's my little gift to this very generous/helpful community. I designed this card game as a way to rewire your brain to be a more powerful and empathetic person in many ways. We have been playing my physical card version for the past >3.5 years in the "Emotional Intelligence Play Group" I founded here in Austin, TX.

IF you choose to check it out in the Google Play Store, please review. I designed this game as a way to empower people and I'm struggling here to get it going, so thanks for any help you can give!

rboeck · Dec 15, 2018

I tried the play store link and got: This app is not compatible with any of your devices; i use five + devices and it is unusual, that none of them is able to run your app...

Computersmith64 · Dec 15, 2018

rboeck said:
I tried the play store link and got: This app is not compatible with any of your devices; i use five + devices and it is unusual, that none of them is able to run your app...

Same - shows as not compatible with my Nexus 7, Nexus 5 & Galaxy S3.

Check that you haven't got a strange required feature in your manifest. Look for something like:

B4X:

AddManifestText(<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.telephony" android:required="true"></uses-feature>)

- Colin.

moster67 · Dec 15, 2018

Accessibility services is an important topic.

To learn more about accessibility services, you can get an overview here:
1) https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/accessibility/
There are many important things to take into consideration.

2) A good app from Google is Accessibility Scanner. It will tell you how well you app is doing and how it can be improved:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.accessibility.auditor

3) Enable TalkBack on your device and see if it works well with your app.

4) Here are some more information:

5) Lately I am personally developing apps in Java and with Android Studio so what mentioned above is perhaps easier for me to implement.
However, with B4A you can still do things to make your app more accessibile, for example:
-Setting a content description:

B4X:

Sub Activity_Create(FirstTime As Boolean)
   Dim b As Button
   b.Initialize("")
   SetContentDescription(b, "example")
End Sub

Sub SetContentDescription(v As View, Text As String)
   Dim r As Reflector
   r.Target = v
   r.RunMethod2("setContentDescription", Text, "java.lang.CharSequence")
End Sub

In my opinion, this property should be available in the designer. This may also help us developers not to forget adding this property.

6) You could use my partial wrapper of Accessibility Services to implement more features as described in point 1.
https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/t...users-with-disabilities-automation-etc.95216/

Good luck.

Scotter · Dec 15, 2018

rboeck said:
I tried the play store link and got: This app is not compatible with any of your devices; i use five + devices and it is unusual, that none of them is able to run your app...

Thx for trying! Here it is on the Amazon store, which is correctly reporting compatibility.
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07LCV8DLZ/

Scotter · Dec 15, 2018

moster67 said:
Accessibility services is an important topic.
To learn more about accessibility services, you can get an overview here:
1) https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/accessibility/
There are many important things to take into consideration.
2) A good app from Google is Accessibility Scanner. It will tell you how well you app is doing and how it can be improved:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.accessibility.auditor
3) Enable TalkBack on your device and see if it works well with your app.
4) Here are some more information:
...
5) Lately I am personally developing apps in Java and with Android Studio so what mentioned above is perhaps easier for me to implement.
However, with B4A you can still do things to make your app more accessibile, for example:
-Setting a content description:
...
In my opinion, this property should be available in the designer. This may also help us developers not to forget adding this property.
6) You could use my partial wrapper of Accessibility Services to implement more features as described in point 1.
https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/t...users-with-disabilities-automation-etc.95216/
Good luck.

Wowee! Thank you!

Scotter · Dec 16, 2018

Computersmith64 said:
Same - shows as not compatible with my Nexus 7, Nexus 5 & Galaxy S3.
Check that you haven't got a strange required feature in your manifest. Look for something like:

B4X:

AddManifestText(<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.telephony" android:required="true"></uses-feature>)

- Colin.

Thanks! Are you saying I need that line in my manifest or don't?

Computersmith64 · Dec 16, 2018

Scotter said:
Thanks! Are you saying I need that line in my manifest or don't?

No - I'm saying you should make sure there aren't any feature dependencies that would stop your app being compatible with a wide range of devices. Or another thought: What is the minSdkVersion in your manifest set to?

- Colin.

Shelby · Dec 16, 2018

Hey Scott,
My phone is downloading it now from Amazon Apps. My phone's a fairly new Samsung S9. I think it's been downloading for over 5 minutes.

Scotter · Dec 17, 2018

Shelby said:
Hey Scott,
My phone is downloading it now from Amazon Apps. My phone's a fairly new Samsung S9. I think it's been downloading for over 5 minutes.

Hi Shelby. Thanks for testing!
I just now updated it at Amazon to a new version.
Maybe that will work better?

Android Question Google dinged my app for accessibility

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