Any blind or partially sighted users out there?

41

Hi

Hmmm, can’t DM you or PM you it seems, prob because I’m new on the forum. You might be able to private message me if you select my StokerBrian profile name.

Anyway, I’ve got a story on a range of active/broken/previous pilots, as I to tend to break them, a bit like my turbos during Covid :blush: I’ve a couple at the moment, but the TR and my first smart bike is already making the difference, giving me more access to training than I’d normally have.

Lots of potential in the Trainer Road app, which I’ve already decided I’ll renew after the free month trial.

Just want the icing on the cake, with a few easy to fix small improvements. I can tell from your YouTube videos how far the app has developed.

I think we could do with a new Part3 video showing you the latest more functional /a accessible TR!

I’m on twitter bri1729 if you can find me there.

Thanks

Bri

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42

Hi Martin

Just wondered if you experience the fault I can reproduce each/every time if I open the Calendar tab in TR, and then simply close and re-open VoiceOver. I have the triple home button as a short-cut for that.

It then switches the calendar view to the Calendar Welcome screen, that offers just a ‘next’ button which can’t be selected.

Turning VoiceOver off doesn’t help as the Next button is unactionable for sighted users too.

I’ve deleted and re-installed the app, rebooted and trigger this Welcome Screen issue everytime.

It’d be good to know if you can or can’t reproduce it as it would confirm if it is just my account perhaps.

Still need to make myself a plan with help, but otherwise, the TR app is working well!

And I’ve been getting through some of the podcasts too. Chad is so knowledgeable! All very interesting

Thanks
Bri

43

Hi Brian,
As I think I said in a previous post, I’ve had to ask my wife to help me create the plan as indeed, I cannot seem to get the calendar to respond appropriately. Scrolling back and forth to the relevant date and then double tapping the date does nothing it doesn’t close the calendar down nor does it appear to populate the field on the form.
Been on the bike again today and simply cannot replicate your problem with Spotify??? Going in and out of the TR app to mess about with music or emails and then going back into the TR app does nothing to affect the announcement of forthcoming intervals. Very frustrating, I’m sure!
I wonder if you are listening to chads workout instructions whilst you work out? Because of a previous problem, I went into settings and turn these off and consequently they are not read out to me.

I wonder if the gremlin is somewhere there. I’ve only just thought of this, so haven’t had the opportunity to go back in and turn them on and to see whether or not the problem is created.
Yes, the app is an absolute must listen. As a typically obsessive male completist. I’ve listened to all of them and many of them many times!
Glad to hear that you’re getting on with it, and once you have a plan set up with someone, I’m sure that you will find it very easy to use the product.

44

Sorry I didn’t get back to you directly regarding your use of the app. To begin with, I was on mid volume and struggled to fit in my TrainerRoad workout with my outdoor cycling.

I do now save all my Garmin rides onto Strava and they are automatically uploaded into TrainerRoad although I believe that the boffins are struggling to make any really usable sense of the data that these external rides give as far as the machine learning and adaptive training are concerned.
However, having purchased a power meter and done a bit of research into the way that I ride, it is obvious that even though I come back pretty worn out after an hour or two of cycling on the tandem, it is nothing like the same as a structured TrainerRoad workout. Consequently, I have reduced myself to low volume and what I try to do is thread. These three workouts in amongst the two or three bike rides that I do with my tandem partner. If If I’m too tired to finish work out or even to contemplated, I will drop it to endurance or miss it. Completely obviously, if I’m finding the work out too hard because I’m tired from my outdoor cycling than using the questionnaire causes adaptive training to ease the training Lord and therefore they become a little more easy to accommodate.
I hope this makes sense.
All the best,

45

Hi

Thanks for getting back to me. Couldn’t find how to DM you :blush:

So, I’m using the calendar ok in finding a workout of interest, and then selecting Schedule, and then navigating to a date to add it. Selecting a specific time isn’t possible, or very accessible anyway with VoiceOver, but that isn’t important.

So, In the evening, I can pre-select a specific workout for the next day this way.

I can then go to the calendar, double tap the activity on the day of the month I previously selected for that workout and simply do Load Workout, and check I’ve devices attached and pedal to start, brilliant, it works well.

I found that if I turned VoiceOver off to show that cal to a friend for example, it causes the Calendar Welcome screen to appear which only offers a ‘Next’ button that does nothing. You have to kill the app to resume to get anywhere.

You can test this by just ending VoiceOver and re-starting it on the Calendar tab, and see if the Welcome Screen pops up.

I’ve got everything enabled in the Settings, including Narrative Notes and interval sounds etc.

So, I get the motivational announcements as well as the current, next and subsequent interval descriptions announced at the start of every interval.

It all works well, and as long as I don’t switch media / messa about with music play back choices during a workout, get that all set up first, then my workouts work perfect now.

I love the ‘Pedal to resume’ feature for when I’ve stretched myself too much and nearly broke my spirits :blush: A quick swig and continue to the end !

I’m in touch with WattBike themselves to address inaccessibility issues with their native app, preventing basic pairing from the start amazingly for VoiceOver users, and in an email exchange with Ming from TR to tackle some of the text edit box / Plan Builder issues.

Many thanks again

Bri

46

Have you tried the Train Now feature?
It’s a brilliant way of having the software present suggestions for workouts. When you are ready to exercise, open the app, click on the menu, tap on train now, and it will bring you up three workouts recommending whether you should do endurance/recovery, climbing or attacking each with a higher level of intensity than the last.
On this page, you can also increase the difficulty level and you can change the duration of the work out.

Irrespective of whether or not you are following a training plan, you can jump onto the bike, choose this and it will recommend an appropriate workout with a level of difficulty commensurate with how you did during your previous workouts/workout questionnaires using the adaptive training feature. During those periods when I’m not following a specific plan with a specific goal in mind, I find this a really stimulating way of using the product.
The adaptive training functionality should also mean that you are always walking on the edge of the cliff between being able to do the workout by being stretched, but not finding yourself in the situation that you’ve described where you have to pause have a drink and then try again! It really is a clever product. Before adaptive training, I too would find myself either having to stop in the middle of a workout or even fearing the workout that was up and coming. Now, thanks to adaptive training I find that the workouts that are presented to me are always just a bit harder than I would like them to be, but never so hard that I can’t finish them. Bloody clever stuff!
With regards to selecting specific workouts when I go to schedule if I then tap on schedule now, it will put it into the calendar on today’s date so that’s another way of achieving what you’re talking about.
Good luck with Wattbike! I decided not to bang my head against that particular wall, as I am so happy with TR.
Martin

47

Yep, you’re absolutely right. I only got around to doing another RAMP test last night, so my FTP has always been wrong, so I was hand picking workout titles spotted from others on Strava completing them, and then adding to my own calendar to repeat, and try to beat of course :blush:

There are some amazing work-outs on the WattBikeHub that the All Black rugby team used, devised for them, and one of my pilots was raving about them. Unfortunately, I can’t enjoy them to the same as how TR offers with absolutely zero real-time feedback on the WattBikeHub app.

So, as you say, TR is the only real usable option and the adaptive features makes it ahead of the game!

I think they’re close to getting your real road bike rides to be factored in to their calculations using ‘Adaptive 2’ I think I heard on the podcast.

I still don’t quite understand ‘sweet spot’ threshold and the other terms yet, but I appreciate they’re just working zones.

More experience and I’ll learn the value in going for a VO2 over an endurance or spring type of workout depending on my training to date etc.

Bri

48

Hi again Martin

Trying to be certain I’m reporting a TR bug rather than just a device issue with my own iPhone, although the play-back issue I’ve replicated on a second iPhone too.

Could you do a test for me perhaps?

Not sure if you use Whatsapp voice messages, but yesterday, I had TR messages all being announced fine, but then switching to Whatsapp, playing a Whatsapp voice message, and returning to TR, the auto-announcement of the current, next & subsequent interval stopped.

That is the first part of the test.

I thought I’d re-start VoiceOver to see if auto-announcements restarted, but the triple click of my home button to end and then re-start VoiceOver simply triggered the ‘Calendar Welcome’ screen and killed the workout.

That Welcome screen provides no escape, with the ‘Next’ button being un-actionable, so the only thing you can do is kill the TR app.

I left that screen on for 5 minutes, carried on pedalling, and finally killed the app to try to return and resume, but I could see the activity had already been marked as ‘Cut short’ in the calendar and it was ended at the time of when I tried to re-start VoiceOver.

So, it seems just ending and re-starting VoiceOver can kill TR workouts and trigger that broken welcome screen.

Can you see if you can turn VoiceOver off and back on during a workout and see if it interrupts / kills your workout?

And if Whatsapp voice memos kill your auto-interval announcements?

Appreciate your help with this before I send more reports to Support :blush:

Thanks

Bri

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49

Hi,
First of all: iPhone model, iPhone 7. iOS version 15.7.3.
Only read your email having finished this mornings workout so was easy to jump back on and start a new workout. Using triple tap of the home button on my iPhone 7 I turn VoiceOver off and on and the software behave itself perfectly well. Could swipe through objects and the workout was not interrupted at all. Went into Spotify started listening to some Arctic Monkeys came back out of Spotify, and as the current interval ended received the beeps indicating the start of the next interval and then was given the description of current next and subsequent interval as normal.

My main phone is an iPhone 12 Pro with iOS 16.3.1. After tomorrow’s workout, I’ll switch telephones and link this to the Wattbike and see whether or not I can replicate your fault but I’m pretty sure that I’ve used this phone and Wattbike in the past, and I’m certain to have been in and out of all the apps and I really haven’t experienced the fault you’re having.

I fully appreciate how very frustrating this answer is!

50

Hey Martin

Brilliant to hear all that and appreciate your time testing.

Sorry for messing up your stats with a partial test ride cluttering up your stats :blush:

Good news you couldn’t find the fault and so it could be pointing the issue at iPhone SE20 models, or the latest IOS 16 release.

Good move not to update your iPhone 7, if it works, don’t update!!

I have repeated the loss of announcements thing on a second iPhone, but that was a SE20 too, and an earlier version of IOS 16.

Didn’t test the triple tap thing yet.

Undoubtedly, there is a TR bug with that Welcome Screen poppingup and an usuable ‘Next’ button being presented, that no one can use with or without VoiceOver on, but I’m the only one who can trigger that screen on my device, very odd :blush:

Ah well.

Oh yes, I did an endurance ‘Train Now’ ride yest and again it felt too easy, demanding at most 90W less than my FTP, but I’ll watch how the next few days ‘adaptions’ go … could be breaking me in gentle on my new FTP perhaps. I appreciate, its not supposed to be eyeballs out each/every time!

Let me know how you get on with the iPhone 12 test whenever, appreciate it!!

Bri

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51

Now this is what I call weird!
So, using my iPhone 12 Pro with the most up-to-date iOS 16 plus, I started my workout went into Spotify came out of Spotify and everything was okay went back into Spotify but this time elected to play something I then went back into the TrainerRoad app and sure enough Bryan, it’s stopped announcing the next interval at the end of the current interval. So, I went back into Spotify and close the app down and reverted to playing my playlist through my smart speaker.
This had no impact on the bug. At the end of each interval I got the ascending or descending beeps but no description of the current next and subsequent intervals.
As this is no particular problem for me I carried on to the end of the workout and this is when something strange happened. as the workout ended I stopped peddling and to my surprise the software said workout complete and then proceeded to read every one of the sets of intervals that it had failed to read out during the workout. So it went through about five or six minutes of saying current interval is sex next interval is why subsequent interval is Z then current interval is why, next interval is Z, subsequent interval is sex and so on and so on and so on all the way through to the point where it said current interval is cool down and then it stopped.
I hope the shed some light on the bug.
Cheers,

52

I am a new blind user and today was my first day getting on TrainerRoad. I am finding the app to be somewhat difficult to use. I am finding that many of the controls do not have correct, accessibility roles, and The app seems to be at times difficult to use. I read through the posts here, and I agree that the calendar, setting up training days is difficult, if not impossible do it without side. Would this be a good form to Present all of the issues that I’m finding with the app? Also, is there a way to reset, start fresh? I did a lot of experimentation and I am unsure. The software is going to correctly track my fitness. I have a cyclops h3 smart trainer and it works extremely well with his trainer. any hints or suggestions on how to get started would be great. I am a tandem Stoker and have been so for many years. It’s only recently that I discovered this app and decided to take the plunge into indoor training with the computer. so far, this is the only usable app I have found that is at least working somewhat with voiceover. I am looking forward to becoming more fit with this app.

53

I am trying to figure out how to get started on the app and I am finding the provided list of trainings to be confusing. This is the first time I have used something like this and want to get started but do not know what course to choose. How do I know what courses I should be choosing and how lang they are. The filters are close to be inaccessible, I cannot tel what filter is chosen. I wish there was a recomdned set of rides that I can start off with to get used to the app. I did the amp test and foundthe feedback to be nice but the layout of the screen to be a bit diffacult to understand. I then decided to try a workout after finishing the ramp test and this is where I became frustrated becuase I caould not figure out what type of working I was looking at. for example, I want to ride for about 45 minutes and have a marit workout seeing that I am just getting started and I am out of shape. I would appecate any guideance on how to get started for the frist time. I am looking forward to seeing how this app can help me be healthier .

54

Hi there,
Sorry it’s taken a while to respond to your initial post. Welcome to TrainerRoad!
I fully appreciate and understand your frustrations in getting to grips with the app. I had the good fortune to have been listening to the podcast for a number of years before I got my first indoor trainer and had a good understanding of the fundamentals of what TrainerRoad are attempting to do.
To some extent understanding this will answer some of the questions that I think you are asking. You will have to go back in time a little if you choose to listen to the podcast to get to the bit where they are explaining the app and its philosophy but it’s an interesting listen and The team are good company and offer literally thousands of good training ideas.
As for accessibility, whilst it is by no means perfect I’m pretty confident that it is significantly better than any of the other apps that are widely available for use with a smart trainer. A recent contributor to this thread took the time and trouble to attempt to use a number of alternatives such as Zwift and Wattbike hub and found them to be dreadful.
In setting the app up in the first place, I am lucky to have a very patient wife who was happy to help me link the app to my equipment and who is also happy to help me set up my training plans in accordance with the deadlines and objectives that I have. Once this is done, I find the app pretty easy to navigate and use.
Again, the later contributor to this thread had a similar problem and he overcame this by contacting support who were happy to help him set up his training plan, including his races and other calendar objectives so that he could then commence using the app and following the adaptive training plan that the product provides.
If you are at the phase where you are only experimenting with the app and you have undertaken a ramp test, you may find the easiest thing to do is to use the “train now” feature.
If you tap the open menu button that appears at the top of the calendar page when you open the app you will find the train now option is there. Tapping on this will bring up an overlay which based upon the result of your ramp test will suggest an appropriate workout for that day. It is intelligent and uses adaptive training to recommend a workout that will either push you a little in the area described as “climbing” or, “attacking” or if you have worked hard on the previous day you may find that it offers you an “endurance” workout which is of lower intensity that may either be to develop your endurance capability or indeed may be a recovery ride.
You should also see that via this overlay you can select the workout duration you desire be it 30, 45, 60 minutes or more. Using this functionality will give you a feeling for how the app progresses the intensity levels of your workouts and how it makes sure that you intersperse lower intensity recovery rides along with higher intensity more stretching rides that will enable you to benefit from all the adaptations that your body undergoes when following the plan.
Once you become familiar with the ‘train now’ functionality, it may then be time for you to set up a training plan. For this you will need to set an overall objective and the plan builder functionality, whilst not terribly accessible, will take you through exactly what information you need to give. Once you have done this, based upon the dates that you have given to the app you will be presented with a training plan which is usually structured along the lines of a base phase, a build phase and then dependent upon the type of event you have entered there will be a speciality phase.
Again, the workouts are structured to give you adequate recovery and they are periodised so that you will have phases of effort with a week of recovery at the appropriate time. The adaptive nature of the training plan will use your responses to the post workout questionnaire to establish whether or not the AI can afford to give you a harder work out or whether in fact it has set the bar a little too high and whether those workouts should be made a little easier. You should find therefore that the app will always be stretching you but should never be stretching you to the point where you snap!
With my wife’s assistance to overcome some of the less accessible functionality on the app, I have to say that I find TrainerRoad very effective and as I say relatively simple to use. I’ve been a subscriber now since late 2019 and I’m very happy indeed with the product.

All the best with your training and I hope that this reply has been of some help.

Martin

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55

Hey @raydar11011, welcome to TrainerRoad!!

I am going to open up a Support ticket and reach out to you direct via email since this may be the best way to get you set up and all ready to ride :slight_smile:

Thank you, @MEN705, for taking the time to write a very insightful response, as you’re probably a pro at this by now and have the best tips to give!

This is also super helpful feedback for us, and we are happy to hear you’ve found the app to be effective and relatively simple to use.

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56

Hi Caro,

Thank you so much for your aid; this shows that TrainerRoad truly does care. I am even more excited to see where I can go on this platform. I had looked at other apps and find them to be very inaccessible and no real way of communicating their accessibility issue(s). I find this refreshing that you’re willing to take feedback. Would you be willing to take additional accessibility related feedback as I am using the app? Also, is the beta program still open to those of us who wish to test? I noticed that there was talk of using blind folks to help test your app and this is my day-to-day job, testing software for accessibility.

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57

Hello TrainerRoad, a little bit of a moan I’m afraid!
Many weeks ago now both Bryan and I reported the fact that the intensity overlay on the workout screen has been broken. The functionality used to allow blind users to tap on intensity and it would open an overlay which would allow you to increase or decrease the intensity and then enable you to tap it again to close the overlay and continue the workout at the newly selected intensity. Despite positive words from support about the importance of correcting this bug there’s been no progress.
Now however there is a more significant bug. After the most recent update when selecting and loading a work out a screen appears over the workout detail screen which I understand having asked a sighted person is a series of emojis which represent how prepared I am to do the work out. The screen has no accessible functions. Using VoiceOver gestures I could swipe left and right but I’m given no description of any of the emojis and their meaning and so far as I am aware having attempted to double tap I cannot get rid of the screen. Although I can pedal to play and start the workout I am unable to get to the workout detail screen so I have no means of checking how long is left in an interval, what my heart rate is, what the target power is, What the elapsed time is, cadences, or the end time is, what are the details of the previous current next and subsequent intervals may be. I am literally now having to exercise blind.
During the development of the accessibility functionality I had numerous conversations and correspondence with both a developer and with Pete and a lot of talk took place about putting accessibility at the heart of future development. I made the point that unless someone is given the role of advocate for accessibility it will always be the case that development will take place with accessibility as an afterthought and consequently any upgrades would almost certainly break existing functionality and would be unlikely to conform to the standard set for accessibility. Sadly, this seems to be the case. There doesn’t appear to be anyone advocating for blind users nor does it seem to be backed into the development process that testing will also cover whether or not any development has broken the accessibility functionality. This really isn’t acceptable. Your blind users may form a tiny minority of your overall user base but we are entitled to be able to use the product and you really ought to be making sure that you’re not doing anything which prejudices the product against our using it.
Sorry that it’s a moan. As you know I am by and large a great lover of the product but this really should be taken care of and efforts should be made in future to avoid a repeat of these issues.
Kind regards, Martin

1 Like
58

Hi Martin,

I did a deep dive into the Intensity issue and we’re prioritizing getting a fix in for this. I’m sorry for the poor experience this is causing in the meantime. :frowning:

I also connected with our Support Team and am glad to hear we were able to find a short-term fix for the Motivation Survey issue.

A little background on that…the Motivation Survey feature is still a test feature which isn’t displayed to all users. There is still more work to do before rolling it out fully.

All that said, we really appreciate you taking the time to bring both of these issues to our attention! Building features with Accessibility in-mind is part of our development process and is really important to us, but we understand how these bugs slipping through gave a different impression.

I’m going to follow up with you via DM so I can keep you in the loop on bug fixes and open up the line of communication.

59

Hey everyone,

I have good news about the intensity overlay and the pre-workout questionnaire - we’ve just released a new version of our beta app that fixes VoiceOver functionality for both of these features. :slightly_smiling_face:

In order to update to the beta, you’ll need to follow the steps outlined in this article.

Just a heads-up, there are drop-down menus for each operating system (iOS, Android, Mac, & Windows) in that article that’ll need to be clicked for the information to display and be read.

If you’d rather wait until the regular production version of TrainerRoad is updated, we typically release the apps on Mondays, and these changes that are in beta should be out next week.

As always, feel free to reach out if you have any questions or issues along the way. We’re here to help! :smile: