Accessibility: UI elements overlapping and focus order sequence fixes

[AnaFerreira015]

Hi! I’m Ana Ferreira, a Master's student in Computer Science.

As part of my research on mobile accessibility, I am analyzing open-source Android applications to help identify and correct accessibility barriers so users can utilize assistive technologies more effectively.

I’ve been exploring UnitsTool and noticed some layout and navigation issues that impact usability, so I wanted to propose a fix.

1. The Issue

On the Main Conversion screen, several UI components (specifically the unit labels and conversion results) present the following behavior:

• Current behavior: When text spacing is increased or font sizes are adjusted, text elements begin to overlap one another (violating WCAG 1.4.12 Text Spacing).
• Impact: This makes the conversion results unreadable. For users who need custom text spacing for clarity, the overlapping labels obscure the numerical values, making the app's output unreliable.

2. Proposed Solution

To fix this, I suggest ensuring that layout containers (like ConstraintLayout or TableLayout) use flexible constraints and that TextViews are not set to fixed heights, allowing them to wrap and push adjacent elements rather than overlapping them.

Code snippet / XML suggestion:

<TextView
    ...
    android:layout_width="0dp"
    app:layout_constrainedWidth="true"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" />

3. Additional fixes (Need your input)

I have identified 4 other accessibility improvements for UnitsTool.

To avoid spamming your notification feed, how would you prefer I submit these?

• Option A: List them all here in this issue (I can update the comment below).
• Option B: Open separate issues for each specific problem.

If you prefer to review everything at once, here is the summary of the other findings:

1. Focus Order Failure (WCAG 2.4.3): The navigation sequence via TalkBack is illogical, jumping between input fields and unit selectors in a confusing order.
2. Duplicate Text (WCAG 3.2.4): Redundant labels cause the screen reader to repeat the same unit name or value twice.
3. Text Resizing Issues (WCAG 1.4.4):
   • Insufficient Increase: Conversion values do not scale properly when the system font size is maximized.
   • Insufficient Reduction: Layout issues occur when font size is reduced (Advisory).

I can provide detailed fixes for these upon request.

Please let me know your preference, and I will proceed accordingly.

Best regards,

[ThiBsc]

Hello @AnaFerreira015 , Thank you for using the app, it's always appreciated to have feedback on open source and free application as it takes time.

I need to do an update for google requirement, but i don't have a lot of time for this at the moment.

You can list everything here with you suggestion and screenshots to help the understanding. Of course, if you want to make the fixes yourself, I'm open to review pull requests.

For you snippet suggestion, I want to avoid using android specific fix to stay compatible with iOS if someone wants to build for this platform.

It's a good point, I didn't check at all the app under accessibilities feature at the OS level, so you are right, it's something interesting to do.

We can collaborate on this point if you want

Best regards,