We’ve been working on the topic of information accessibility for the past several years. By accessibility, we mean that everyone should be able to access information in a means and format that suits them.
In addition to these people, this update includes functions that can be customised for each user in pursuit of "ease of viewing" for people with colour vision deficiency, far-sightedness, total blindness, and various visual difficulties such as presbyopia, cataracts, and glaucoma.
We’ve been looking for ways to convey information that do not rely on only one of each of the three senses: colour, sight, and hearing. We have taken the utmost care to convey information not only by colour, but also by text, and not only by text, but also by sound.
Language barriers are another accessibility issue, and for the 2021 update, we worked on English language support to make information accessible to more people. For 2022, we are working to make visual, colour, and auditory communication even more accessible.
In addition to the existing dark theme-based interface, a new light theme-based design can now be enabled. We aimed to create a colour scheme that is highly visible, fresh, and beautiful. In addition to redesigning the colour scheme for every screen in the app, we reimplemented every component to work with the new themes, including the map system, image generation engine, and widgets.
Colour schemes optimised for each colour vision deficiency type can be selected: "Normal Vision" which is the general colour vision compatible with most people; "Protanopia/Deuteranopia," in which red and green are difficult to distinguish; and "Tritanopia" in which blue and yellow are difficult to distinguish.
Contrast can be selected from "low," "normal," and "high. When set to "low", the display is less stimulating and pale, while when set to "high", frames and text are more clearly displayed.
You’re now also able to adjust the font size and font weight. Font size can be made 2 levels smaller than standard, and 4 levels larger. Font weight can be selected from "normal," "medium," and "bold”. By adjusting the font size and thickness to your preference, the weather information and weather summary screens will be easier to read than ever before.
For users using VoiceOver or TalkBack, you can now enable a layout that is more optimised for screen-reader usage. When this feature is turned on, the map in the application is omitted and the layout is changed to one that is easier to touch with a screen reader. The user interface has also been updated to include more accessible read-outs.
For example, when you tap the weather card on the home screen, it will read, "It's currently sunny, 23.9 degrees, recorded 0.0mm of precipitation in the past hour, 30% humidity"; when the weather forecast tab is displayed, it will read, "Today's forecast is cloudy with some rain," and "Forecast high of 26 (3 degrees lower than yesterday), and a low of 21, (same as yesterday)".
Acquired location information and registered area information is used only for displaying disaster prevention information and sending push notifications. Location information sent from the application to the server is converted into an area code or mesh code in advance, within the application (client side), and only those codes are sent over the internet. In other words, the user’s detailed location coordinates never leave your device.
If the app's location setting is set to "Always Allow," the app will periodically retrieve your location in the background. This should have very little impact on your battery life. Also, when "Low Power Mode" is enabled, the app will not update your location in order to reduce power consumption.
Please use the review function on the App Store or Google Play Store for any requests or feedback regarding additional features or quality improvements. ※ Please note that we may not respond to requests submitted via the Contact Us form.