UIDW 16: WWDC Accessibility Preview
Welcome back to UIDW!
W • W • D • C. Less than three weeks, at this point. My excitement has really hit that high, super-hyped level much earlier than usual.
When I try to tell other people what it's like for us, I just sort of say "Apple announces all this stuff and the Earth basically moves by the end of the keynote." I'm trying to just stay chill, relax, look back on the year that was and feel good about the designs I've made. There's a little part of me that always gets jealous of the amazing design as it's coming out of the keynote. But, like, what is that? It's so easy to sit back on the couch and wish you could have been in all of those rooms when all of those decisions were made.
Truthfully though, that does a disservice to the many, many people who collectively created all that we get to sit back and enjoy watching and then download and enjoy using. Not to mention, we get to build on top of all of it. The same way that we sit and take a deep breath waiting to take it all in, they sit and take a deep breath hoping we'll love it and welcome it into our lives.
So I don't know what to say! I'm not someone for predictions. If anything, I would like to formally predict that Apple will melt our faces off. I just don't see it being anything short of amazing, surprising, and inspiring.
Let's get into it.
This is UI Designer Weekly, and I am Sahand, your humble guide through some beautiful Apple design.
Sahand
These System-Level Designs Are Working 24/7
A symmetrically-opposed pair of blue circles and lines communicate text selection. I had never really noticed that the ending highlight has the circle on the bottom. Would this look less nice if they were both on top? Perhaps, they communicate start and end effectively this way.
apple.com accessibility feature on May 20th, 2021
Just a Highlight
A simple white highlight borders the current selection with the new AssistiveTouch feature on Apple Watch.
Instructions on a Platter
A beautifully-simple rounded rectangle fixes to the top of the Apple Watch display with a message helping with use of AssistiveTouch. This is a great example of text hierarchy, applied simply, going a long way.
Horizontal Overflow is NOT Off-Limits
A horizontally-overflowing list of actions is offered by Quick Actions within AssistiveTouch on Apple Watch. This is perhaps a great example of how and when to use horizontal scrolling: when you are really constrained for space and have a list of basically-equal choices for the user to choose from. I often have a hard time deciding when to use horizontal scrolling and when I should be reaching for something else, so I'm adding this example to my "it's okay to use" pile.
