OneFindMe is a free AliExpress search built for people who use screen readers. This log records, with dates, what blind and visually impaired users told us and what we changed because of it. People are not named unless they asked to be.
A free photo describer, open source
A maintainer of an accessibility resource list told us the list takes only open-source or non-commercial tools. So the photo description now also exists on its own: paste any AliExpress product link at onefindme.com/describe and hear what the listing's photos show, with no ads, no affiliate links and no link to any shop. Its source code is public under the MIT licence on GitHub. The site's homepages now also say, at the top, that the site is built to work with screen readers.
“Describe this product” now shows its sources
Feedback: a blind-shopping instructor who uses VoiceOver, on the BlindAI mailing list. He explained that what decides a purchase is the text printed in the photos (watts, sizes, model numbers), how many units are shown, the connector and the scale, and that a confident wrong description costs money. Changed the same day: text printed in the photos is copied word for word; the description looks at up to four photos of the listing instead of only the main one; it begins by saying how many photos it was built from; when a photo and the seller's title disagree, for example on wattage or brand, it gives both and says where each comes from, so the shopper decides; and it ends by saying that the photos may show colours, bundles or accessories that are not part of the listing.
Prepared for NVDA and JAWS users
Before inviting NVDA users to test, we listened to what a screen reader hears on a results page. The results heading read the search, then a second, larger number and the word “Share”; it now reads only the search. A “+2 points” message that was spoken on every search is now silent for screen readers. The search box got a search landmark, so the D key and the VoiceOver rotor find it. A loading label that appeared in the wrong language on every page now appears in the page's own language.
Accessibility statement in 13 languages
The statement existed in only two languages. It is now in all 13 languages of the site, and it says plainly what has not been tested thoroughly yet: TalkBack, NVDA and JAWS.
Ukrainian, asked for by a blind user
On 2 October a blind VoiceOver user asked on AppleVis for a Ukrainian interface. The next day the Ukrainian site went live, with voice search and photo descriptions in Ukrainian.
The screen-reader version
Tested on iPhone with VoiceOver by a blind user, the developer's brother, through search, results and opening a product. The number of results is announced, each product card is read as one sentence (name, price, rating, orders), the buttons say which product they belong to, and the “Describe this product” button was added because AliExpress product titles are often English keyword lists, even on pages in other languages.
Voice search, in words
The voice search button was a microphone icon on its own and nobody used it. It now says “Voice search” in words, in every language of the site.
Not tested thoroughly yet: TalkBack, NVDA and JAWS. If you use one of them, your report helps us most.
Write to [email protected] — please mention your device, browser and screen reader.