Accessibility
How to choose an accessible app for a relative
· 5 min read
Marta has been on the phone with her mother for twenty minutes. Her mother lives three hours away. “Mum, press the big green button.” “Which button? All I can see is tiny writing.” They both hang up exhausted. The app Marta downloaded had five stars and thousands of reviews, but not one of those reviews was written by a seventy-eight-year-old woman trying to use it on her own.
That scene plays out in thousands of families. Looking for an accessible app for an older relative, or for someone with specific needs, is frustrating precisely because accessibility doesn't show up on the store listing. It doesn't depend on the star rating — it depends on whether that particular person, your mother, your patient, your child, can use it without help and without giving up after two minutes. This guide gives you clear criteria.
Start with the person, not the app
Before you look at any catalogue, picture who this is for. Can they see well up close? Do their hands shake? Are they comfortable with a phone, or do they avoid it for fear of “breaking something”? Do they read easily, or do they get on better with pictures and sound? An app that's excellent for one person can be useless for another: accessibility isn't a universal label, it's the fit between a tool and a real human being.
There's one exercise that clarifies everything. Don't imagine the best moment of use — imagine the worst: your relative tired, in poor light, without their glasses, trying to use the app alone on a Tuesday night. If the tool survives that, it will survive almost anything.
Six signs of a well-designed app
These are the marks of someone who thought about accessibility from the start, rather than patching it on at the end:
Six signs an app is accessible
- Large, adjustable text
- Respects the system size and scales without breaking.
- Few steps per task
- The essentials, one or two taps away.
- High contrast
- Readable even in bright sunlight.
- Voice and sound
- Audible alerts and read-aloud support.
- Large, well-spaced buttons
- They prevent mistaps when hands tremble.
- Screen reader support
- A sign someone took accessibility seriously.
Quick rule: If it meets most of these, it's on the right track. If it boasts about features but fails the basics, walk away.
The fundamentals matter more than the feature list.
Learn to read the red flags
You can spot the warning signs in five minutes, if you know where to look. This comparison sums up what separates a tool built for the person from one built to impress in a demo:
| Red flags | Good signs |
|---|---|
| Screens crowded with options | One main action per screen |
| Ads that interrupt | No ads, no distractions |
| Tiny grey text | Generous, legible type |
| A long sign-up before you can start | Works with almost no setup |
| Asks for permissions it doesn't need | Explains clearly what it does with your data |
Be wary, too, of apps that try to do everything. One app handling medication, calendar, messages, games and video calls usually does all of it adequately and none of it well. In accessibility, simple and focused almost always wins. And pay particular attention to how data is handled: if an app asks for more permissions than it needs, or doesn't clearly explain what it does with the information, drop it — especially if a vulnerable person is going to use it.
Try it yourself first, then sit beside them
Never install an app and just leave it there. Try it yourself, set it up — text size, contacts, reminders — and only then sit down next to your relative for their first go. Watch without correcting straight away: where they hesitate, what they tap by mistake, what makes them nervous. Those stumbles tell you more than any five-star review.
And give it time. The first week with any new tool is hard. If, after several attempts with your support, it still causes frustration, that isn't the person failing: it's the app not fitting, and it's time to look for another. Switching tools isn't giving up — it's respecting whoever has to use it.
When the app you need doesn't exist
Sometimes you search and search and nothing suits your relative's particular situation. This is more common than it seems: plenty of real needs — a rare condition, a combination of limitations, a specific cultural or language context — simply have no digital solution designed for them, because they don't add up to a “profitable” market.
That gap is exactly where Software as Help starts. We listen to specific needs from families, carers and professionals, we work out with the community how many people share the same problem, and when there's real demand we build the app — free for the people who need it. If you've read this far without finding what you were looking for, perhaps the next step isn't to keep searching but to tell us what's missing.
In short
Choosing an accessible app is, above all, an exercise in empathy: start from the person, check the basics — text, contrast, buttons, steps — be sceptical of anything that promises too much, and stay beside them for the first few goes. Marta eventually found a tool her mother now uses without ringing her. It wasn't the one with the most stars: it was the one someone designed with her in mind. And if nothing fits your case, remember that a missing tool isn't a dead end — it's a need someone ought to hear.