Accessibility · Rootstep

What Rootstep supports

VoiceOver

Every row is read as one complete sentence: a step's title, its date, and whether it is overdue or an official step. Who does it and what it waits for are a swipe away in the More Content rotor.
On Today and Plan, rotors jump straight to Overdue, Official steps and Assigned to me. In Documents, rotors jump to Not ready, In hand luggage and each person's documents.
Bars and charts are read in words, beside the words they draw. The plan's Weeks ahead chart reads each week, and it plays as an Audio Graph, as does the budget by category.
Results, refusals and Undo are announced without interrupting what VoiceOver is already saying. A Magic Tap undoes the last action.
Money and exchange rates are read with full currency names.
Text in another language, such as a letter or a quoted rule, is read in that language.

Voice Control and Switch Control

Every control has a name you can say, such as “Tap Mark done” or “Tap Call”, so you rarely need the grid.
Every action you can take with a swipe also works through Voice Control, Switch Control and the VoiceOver actions menu.
Hit targets are at least 44 by 44 points.

Text, colour and motion

Dynamic Type works up to the largest accessibility sizes. At those sizes, screens switch to a single column, and segmented controls become menus.
Text meets a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 in light and dark appearance.
Colour never carries meaning alone. “Overdue”, “official step” and “done” always come with a symbol or words, and red is kept for a date you set that has passed.
With Differentiate Without Colour on, the parts of a bar stand further apart and the readiness ring carries a mark in every state. With Increase Contrast on, bars are outlined, and the ring and the route strip are drawn thicker.
With Reduce Motion on, animations stop. Haptics can be switched off in Settings › Feedback and tips.
With Smart Invert on, photos, scans and QR codes keep their real colours.

iPad and keyboard

A sidebar and two panes appear when there is room. Narrowing the window keeps your place.
Keyboard shortcuts: ⌘ 1–5 for Today, Plan, Documents, Boxes and Contacts, ⌘ F for Search and ⌘ , for Settings.

Apple Watch

VoiceOver reads the glance as one sentence: the route, the days to go and the dates, with the official steps as its value.
Each step's circle is Mark done. With VoiceOver, Mark done is the row's action. Undo waits for your next action while VoiceOver or Switch Control is on, or the text is at an accessibility size.
At the largest text sizes, the circle stands above the words, and the words wrap whole.
Complications say the counts in words, and an overdue next step says so under its title.

How we test

We run Xcode's automated accessibility audits on every screen, in light and dark appearance, with Increase Contrast, and on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. We record VoiceOver transcripts of the main tasks and check them for every release. We also test by hand on real devices with VoiceOver, Voice Control, the largest text size and Smart Invert. The main tasks are setting up a move, marking a step done, setting a deadline, adding a document, and buying or restoring the Move Pass.

Known limitations

Rootstep is currently available in English only, in British and American English.
Names of states and provinces are shown in English.
The assistant's written answers need Apple Intelligence. Without it, the assistant screen shows the matching parts of your plan instead.
Official government pages open in Safari. Their accessibility depends on the authority that publishes them.

This website

This site aims to meet WCAG 2.2 at level AA. It uses semantic HTML and works with screen readers, keyboard navigation, zoom up to 400%, and light and dark appearance. It respects Reduce Motion, and every page works without JavaScript. The site's only script is its own small file, which adds the sample planner, search and the appearance switch.

Tell us what doesn't work

If something in Rootstep or on this site gets in your way, please write to us. Tell us which assistive technology you use and what happened. Accessibility reports get priority, and we will tell you what we change.

Built for everyone who moves.