would appreciate feedback on TeamStream by Bleacher Report

By Susan D, 12 April, 2013

Forum

iOS and iPadOS

I'm an iOS developer working for Bleacher Report on their TeamStream apps. TeamStream provides sports information and articles. We believe we have about 150 users who use the app with VoiceOver enabled. We were very happy to get unsolicited feedback from one of our VoiceOver users when a change we made inadvertently made the app extremely difficult to use with VoiceOver. To be honest, I'm embarrassed to admit, we had never even considered accessibility. The app changes very frequently, but before every release I run the app with VoiceOver enabled to try to ensure a good experience for our VoiceOver users. But I also realize that, because I am not a regular VoiceOver user, I am a very bad judge of how well the app is working in that respect! I would very much appreciate feedback on how we could improve the app! The app is free and is available here: http://bleacherreport.com/mobile Thank you!

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Comments

Re: Team Stream

Hi Susan. Great to see a developer reaching out to us like this, much appreciated. I have just downloaded the app five minutes ago, so this is just a first impression. Overall you've done a very good job with VoiceOver, but I have encountered a couple of problems early on. VoiceOver is very unstable in the 'Pick Teams' section. If you scroll down the list quickly using the three-finger scroll gesture, or repeatedly flicking right to go through the list, VoiceOver will read some items, but just make a clicking sound on others. It appears to be a stability issue, rather than a formatting issue. It could be a memory issue on my part, but I have tried clearing all apps and rebooting, which made no difference. Perhaps others could confirm this. also in this section, VoiceOver doesn't tell you when a team has been selected. Using zoom I can see that it puts a tick mark on the right side of the screen, but there is no VoiceOver announcement of this. Normally with these kind of lists, once selected, VoiceOver would say for example, "Selected, Tottenham Hotspur". The other thing I noticed is that there seems to be two unlabelled buttons in the 'News Alerts' section- Just underneath the Edit Teams button in the top-left and the Add Teams button in the top-right of this screen. I'll keep playing around with it anyway and let you know if I come across anything, but overall it's not bad at all. Feel free to contact me directly if you want to. Thanks, Dave.

Thank you Dave!

I am so happy to get this feedback! I will go through your comments and see what I can fix.

improvements in next release

Hi again Dave, Thanks to your feedback, I'm hoping the next TeamStream release will be better! Here's what I've done: 1. Explicitly set the accessibility label in the Pick Teams (also called Add Teams) section. I think this will take care of the problem you reported with the missing team names. 2. Added "Selected, team name" and "Removed, team name" announcements when you select or deselect a team in Pick Teams. 3. The "unlabelled buttons" in NewsAlerts I believe was actually an invisible button that, when VoiceOver is not enabled, can be used to dismiss the NewsAlerts pop over. However when using VoiceOver I could not get that button to dismiss NewsAlerts. Instead, I've added recognition for the perform escape gesture (two finger Z) in the pop over, so that VoiceOver users can quickly dismiss NewsAlerts. These changes will be in the 2.6 version of the app, which we are targeting to submit to the AppStore this Friday April 19. Depending on how long it takes Apple to review it, it should be available by the end of the month. To try either 1 or 2, go to the "Add Teams" section by tapping the Add Teams button at the top right of the home screen nav bar. To try 3, tap on the NewsAlerts button in the middle of the nav bar on the home screen. Again, thank you so much for your help! Our entire team declared your feedback "awesome". -Susan

Great stuff

Hi Susan. No problem at all, happy to help. I look forward to trying it out. Quick question, would it be possible to add a permanent "Selected" label in the Pick Teams section, as well as the announcement when you perform the selection or removal (which is a great addition by the way. So when you're browsing that section, VoiceOver will tell you when you pass over a team which is already selected, just like a sighted user can see the tick marks beside such teams as they browse. (Or maybe the change you've made will already do this). As I said though, the changes sound great and I look forward to checking it out.

probably in 2.6.1 release (next one down the line)

Hi Dave, The change you suggest sounds like a good one and doesn't seem like it would be too hard. I don't think I will be able to get it into this release though, as we are already in the testing phase prior to submission on Friday. The good news is we will be doing another release in the near future, and I've entered your suggestion in our feature tracking system so that it won't get lost. Please keep passing me suggestions! I will be on vacation starting next Tuesday but when I'm back I can add more VoiceOver items to our tracking system. Thanks again!

2.6 released, 2.6.1 on the way

Hi Dave, The 2.6 version of TeamStream was just released on Monday. It should have all the changes I mentioned in comment #3 above. Also, I've just added the permanent "Selected" label in the Pick Teams section, per your suggestion. This will be in our 2.6.1 release, which I'm guessing we will submit next week. If all goes well it will be available publicly in 2 or 3 weeks. Thanks again for your suggestions and if you have any more, I'm very happy to hear them! Susan

Wow this is great!!

Hey Susan! I love this app for news, and tweet out things pretty regularly. I will take a look at suggesting some things later tonight after work. I'm glad to see this, because as of now every sports app out is half usable.

Thanks Joe!

Our team has been working hard to improve the app and we're so happy to hear that you like it!

Thank you!

Hi Susan, I just want to say thank you for all your hard work with this app. I tried it today and really love using it!

Thanks Brooke!

So glad to hear you're enjoying the app! Please let me know if there are other things we can do to improve it. We are in a big push this week to get the 2.7 release out, but it would be great to have a list of improvements that we could work into each release.

Wow I forgot to make my list

Wow I forgot to make my list I've been side tracked with Time Warner, so I'm glad I saw this thread again. I will put together my thoughts tonight with the app. I have enjoyed the improvements so far though, and thanks for working with us, and voiceover.

How to access the live gamecasts?

I installed this app a few days back. I love it for the news and the push notifications, but I can't seem to find where the live gamecasts are. I got a notification the other night that a game involving one of the teams I'm following was going in to extra innings. The push note said to follow said game in the gamecast but I couldn't find it. Currently I use a different app to track live stats of games that are in progress, but if I can use team stream to do that too, I can kill a couple of birds with the same stone.lol Thanks for any help.

Live Gamecasts

As of the 2.8 release that became available on August 15, VoiceOver users should go directly to the article that the push notification refers to. (Special thanks to Brian Fischler for recommending this change!) If you are using the 2.8 version and are still having a problem finding gamecasts, please let me know which team you're looking at. If you're not sure which version of TeamStream you have, in the TeamStream app, scroll to the very bottom of the home screen, below all your team buttons. Tap on the 'Send Feedback' button. In the subject line of the email, it will say something like "TeamStream 2.8 (387) Feedback". The first number is the app release number. I will also look at some baseball games today to see if I can find a problem. Thanks! Susan

I must say..

This is the best app out there, I am very impressed with it. I can't wait for the new update. I bet it will even be better. Thanks again Michael.

App

My teamstream app closes every time I try to open it. Any suggestion on what I should do?

Can you please provide more info?

Hi Josh,

I'm sorry to hear that teamstream is closing on you! Can you please try deleting the app, and installing a fresh version from the app store?

Can you let me know what device and version of iOS you are using?

Thanks,
Susan

App

iPad mini and 7.1.2

Thanks for reaching out to VoiceOver users!

I wish there were more app developers like you. Thank you so much for your efforts. I really enjoy Team Stream's articles and notifications, and those features work really well for me using VoiceOver. I found MLB a bit cumbersome under the League Scores section of the app but still find it useable . This is minor, and the only real issue I have had with the app is how VoiceOver pronounces "Team Stream". My wife heard me using my iPhone one day and asked me in a very serious tone, "What kind of app is Teen Stream?" This was not an isolated incident. It also happened at work with a co-worker. LOL

A previous article button

A previous article button would be handy (akin to the back button in a browser). I know it is available within an article but for some reason not from article to article.

Previous article button

Hi Reubs- I'm trying to think of how we could offer a "Previous Article" button. Typically the navigation is from a team stream (the list of articles for the team), then to an article, then back to the stream. If you are in an article and navigate to another article, there is a "nav bar" at the top of the article with forward, back and reload buttons- but you have to pull down to expose these buttons (and I don't know if they have voice over descriptions - I will check.)
If this nav bar were more easily accessible, would that work?
Thanks for your feedback!
Susan

Josh - please try again

Hi Josh,
I had tried messaging you directly last summer but I don't know if you got my message. Please try uninstalling the app completely - as in, not just killing it but totally removing it from your device. Then, install the current version from the app store.
Thanks,
Susan