When a Good App Isn't Accessible to Me
How text size, contrast, and color affect the apps I can use—and how those experiences influence what I build.
September 8, 2026 · Accessibility · About 3 min read
Sometimes I find an app that I really like, but I simply can't use it comfortably.
It doesn't necessarily mean the entire app is inaccessible. Sometimes most of it works perfectly well for me, but then I'll encounter a widget with tiny text or an important part of the interface that doesn't respond to the iPhone's text-size settings.
Other times, it's color.
A developer might create a color scheme that looks great but doesn't provide enough contrast for me to read comfortably. Calendar and productivity apps can be particularly challenging because they often use different colors to communicate categories, priorities, or status.
That's a problem when color isn't a useful source of information for you.
Why I Keep Coming Back to Apple's Apps
I've experimented with plenty of third-party productivity and calendar apps, but I frequently end up back with Apple's built-in solutions.
Accessibility is a big reason why.
I need larger text. I need good contrast. And I don't naturally associate different colors with categories or statuses the way many people do.
If an app expects me to remember that blue means one thing, green means another, and orange means something else, that system isn't giving me useful information. It's giving me something else I have to work around.
An app can have fantastic features and still not be the right app for me.
Sometimes That Makes Me Want to Build Something
Recently, I downloaded a couple of apps that I had really high hopes for. I even paid for them because I'm happy to support other developers and their work.
Unfortunately, I quickly discovered that their design styles didn't match my needs.
But something interesting came out of that experience.
There were a couple of core ideas in those apps that really resonated with me.
I didn't need all of their features. In fact, I usually prefer fewer features if it means the experience stays simple. What interested me were the underlying ideas—just implemented differently.
That's often where the urge to build something myself begins.
Accessibility Influences How I Build
My own apps tend not to use a lot of different colors, and I try not to make color the only way of communicating important information.
That's not an arbitrary design philosophy.
It's a result of how I experience software myself.
When I build something, I'm naturally thinking about questions like: Can the text be larger? Is there enough contrast? Can I understand what's happening without relying on color? Am I adding features because they're actually useful, or just because an app in this category is expected to have them?
I don't necessarily want to recreate the apps I've tried.
I want to take the ideas that worked for me, strip away the things I don't need, and build something that works better for people with needs similar to mine.
Sometimes discovering that an app doesn't work for me isn't the end of the experience.
Sometimes it's the beginning of the next thing I build.