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Unity Accessibility Plugin – Update 16 – Asset Store Sales (Am I Rich Yet?)

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The Unity Accessibility Plugin has been on the Asset Store for 10 months now – time to take a look at the numbers.

Sales and Updates

The plugin is performing well for what it is: A small niche product.
On average, about 4 people pick it up each month. Not all of these are paid, since I occasionally give out a free key, and the plugin was on sale at a reduced price for a while.

Dark haired woman holding up two bags full of money with a satisfied smile

Do you really think this is what’s happening?

If you do the math you’ll see that no one is getting rich from it.
Of course that’s not stopping the occasional side remark:
“Why isn’t this free!?” (to which I quietly sigh and then move on)

I always had very realistic expectations about sales (remember my post: Is It Worth Doing?). In fact, I had only anticipated about 1 or 2 per month. So by my standards, the plugin is actually outperforming! And the sales I get allow me to spend some time each month on email support and on updating the plugin. Since release, I’ve updated the plugin three times and I’m about to release a fourth update.

This is exactly what I was hoping for and I’m really happy the plugin is doing this well!

Mac Support (and JAWS)

One of the biggest features I’ve added was support for voice out on a Mac. I am not a Mac user and feel uncomfortable using one, so I kept putting it off. It wasn’t until a friend needed it that I finally took a deep breath and jumped in. The code for it turned out to be surprisingly trivial. My friend also helped me test it, which made it a lot easier.

I know that JAWS support is still sorely missing from the plugin, and it’s in the works. But that is a whole other can of worms, for another day.
Here’s the link to my Road Map on Trello if you’re interested in what else is coming:
UAP Road Map


					

		
		
	




			
				


		

				

							
Unity Accessibility Plugin – Update 7 – Explore By Touch
						

													
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As of today, the Unity Accessibility Plugin has a new feature: Explore By Touch!


Explore By What Now?


Explore By Touch is an accessibility feature on smartphones that let’s blind users run their finger over the screen – and the screen reader will read out what’s under their fingertip. The screen reader also makes sure that no buttons are accidentally pressed or an app is started unintentionally. This works on both Google TalkBack and iOS VoiceOver.


A blindfolded man is swinging a stick at a pinata. He misses and hits his girlfriend instead.
This was my original impression of Explore By Touch. Typical rookie mistake of a sighted person.


I originally thought that this is one feature that I wouldn’t need to re-create for the accessibility plugin, because I figured that no one would be using it much. I assumed no one wanted to blindly poke around on the screen to discover buttons. Why would anyone do that when swiping left and right navigates safely through the user interface?


Think again, you sighted fool!


As we all know, making blind assumptions is a bad thing. Pun intended.


Why would anyone use Explore By Touch?

The answer is simple. Because it is faster!


Navigating menus is a necessity, not fun. Doing it slowly by stepping through all elements on the screen one by one doesn’t make it any better.

If you already roughly know where a button is located, then using Explore By Touch is the next best thing to actually seeing where it is and clicking it directly.


Sure, the first time you get hit with a new menu, you might just trigger the Read From Top function and have the entire screen read out to you. But after that, you can poke around and find out where things are. And being blind doesn’t mean you cannot remember roughly where a button is located on the screen.


Thanks for the Feedback


I wouldn’t have come to this conclusion if I hadn’t received some very clear feedback from an actually blind person, who straight up told me the plugin would be pretty much useless without Explore By Touch. His opinion matched what I read in an article by Matt Gemmel in which he covers Myths about visually impaired users. After that I put my phone back in accessibility mode for a while and ultimately had to agree. It made me want that feature, too.


I am happy to announce that my plugin’s Explore By Touch is now fully functional.

Also: Thank you for your honest feedback, Scott!