Modern technology doesn’t automatically make life easier for everyone. Computer software and apps can present unique challenges to people living with disabilities. Vision impairment, hearing difficulties, mobility impairment, or cognitive disabilities all make navigating today’s digital apps difficult, or impossible. As a technological innovator, you shouldn’t be willing to leave anyone in the dust. The nature of technology is not to power ahead for those who can use it and forget those who can’t, but to adapt and invent ways to allow all people to benefit from digital advancements. The job of a good UI/UX developer is to create a product that makes the user’s experience easier – that goes for all types of users. A touch of clear design can go a long way. Is It Worthwhile to Design for Accessibility? The short answer is, if you don’t design for accessibility, you’re stunting your app’s ability to grow. The World Bank estimates that 15% of the world’s population lives with a disability. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that number is closer to 20% in the US. That’s a huge segment of the market that could benefit from improved accessibility. The government is increasingly recognizing this, and encouraging action to accommodate it. Congress has introduced legislation in a range of areas aimed at improving accessibility to products and services for people living with disabilities, and some of that includes computer software and apps. For example, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and its 2008 amendments specifies that public programs and services — including information technology — have to be accessible to people living with disabilities, and provide “effective communication” of their content and information. As the population ages, accessibility will only become more important. If you stay ahead of the curve and build this into your app from the start, you’ll have a more ethical product with more lasting power. Ways to Improve Your App’s Accessibility Improving accessibility doesn’t have to be hard. There are plenty of guides out there like these ones by Android and Salesforce that can help you get a full understanding of what your app design must include to be successful. For visual impairments, increased size or contrast text can go a long way in making content easier to read. If you’re targeting an older demographic especially, making the text in your app easy to read should be a goal. Using bolding or italics, instead of just color, to highlight important phrases ensures someone with a vision impairment doesn’t miss important content. Adding captions to audio or video allows people with hearing impairments to access and understand all content. More complex solutions can include formatting web and app content so that programs like Android’s Text-to-Speech can easily read the content aloud to users. Truly stellar accessibility will take more detailed design, such as ensuring your online forms are properly identified so that keyboard-only and voice-only computer users can still use them. Or, it can mean relocating menu items to places where they can be easily found for these users. If you have to hover the mouse over an item to see the actionable items, visual-only users might not even realize it’s there. This is where an experienced app developer can be a great resource to help you address potential user roadblocks you hadn’t even considered. Testing your product often and thoroughly can help identify where your accessibility issues lie, and allow your development team to innovate strong solutions. The Payoff When you make your product more accessible, it will reach more people. You can start to access some of the 20% of the American population living with a disability, who might not otherwise interact with your app. As more technologies are developed for people living with disabilities to navigate computers and apps, there will be more opportunities to develop strong, accessible app design. The field is only growing. When you design software to be more accessible, it’s useful for other purposes as well. Take, for example, captioning video content for people with hearing difficulties has became useful even for people without hearing impairments. Thanks to captioning, video can be watched by people who need to watch sound-free, or for those who don’t understand the video’s native language very well. Similarly, voice control features can be extremely useful for someone with mobility issues, but have the added side effect of assisting someone who’s got his hands full trying to cook dinner. Ultimately, constraint breeds creativity. When you’re required to work within stricter guidelines, you’re forced to adapt your design to fit – and often, you end up with something better than you had originally planned. At Barefoot Solutions, we embrace the creative challenges of accessible design; each challenge is a new opportunity to make your app even better for your users.

Saving is a skill a third of America lacks, with one out of three Americans living without a penny in a retirement account. This isn’t surprising in a culture where money is spent on credit and university education is paid for with borrowed dollars. Given the pressures to live a luxurious lifestyle beyond your means, it can be a challenge to get ahead financially.  Fortunately not all systems in modern western culture result in the reddening of your credit. Specifically, money saving apps.   Mint  Mint is a well known app that even our parents’ parents use. The established credibility and no brainer UI make this app a simple solution for getting all things finance on track. The app takes a look at your overall financial blueprint, including your debts, income, investments and savings. It can be a little terrifying putting all of this confidential information in one place, but perhaps more frightening is that first time you see your overall net worth. However once you get past those hurdles, Mint is an excellent solution for seeing your overall spending and saving. From there, you can set goals such as overall savings for the year or saving in specific areas of your life. One such department could include your affinity for chinese takeout...how it’s possible to spend so much per year on chinese takeout can be pretty impressive when you see your aggregate spending. But with Mint you can get those spending habits at least a little bit more in control, without entirely abandoning chow mein.   Gas Buddy  Gas prices have lately been a bit kinder to us than other times in the recent decade, but petroleum is still a place we’d rather save as many pennies as possible. Gas Buddy is the convenient app to help you locate the best gas prices in your area, and guide you to the gas stations you trust. This is especially great for the travelling salesperson unfamiliar with new towns as you travel throughout your region or state. Then, while saving money is a fun game in and of itself, Gas Buddy includes gamification features such as points for saved gas and clever car icons when you report new gas prices. Take or leave the gamification of it, the best part of this app is keeping a few more cents in your pocket that can better be spent on Italian footwear. We mean savings, savings account is where those extra pennies will go…   BillTracker  There are certainly plenty of bills that you can set to pay all by themselves with auto-payment features. Yet it’s important to keep an eye on when those payments are coming out and maintaining focus on how much you really are spending on your phone bill each month. BillTracker is the simple app that allows you to do just that. This is also helpful for those payments that can’t be set to auto-pay, making absolutely sure you don’t waste a single stupid dollar on an unnecessary late payment.   RetailMeNot  Coupon clipping is still a pain and we’re not going to sit here and say it’s a fun and cool way to spend a Friday night. But that’s why us app developers are looking out for you, and come up with apps like RetailMeNot. This is a fantastic little app for the person who loathes the concept of bargain hunting but still enjoys keeping more of his/her hard earned dollars in their fat wallet. The way we use this app is whenever we’re about to hit “Checkout” on any of your online shopping carts, we always check RetailMeNot to see if there’s a new valid coupon for your particular purchase. We can’t explain how many times we’d laugh at the idea of our bizarre purchases like a 6 pack of Mike Tyson shaped whoopie cushions having a coupon available...only to realize RetailMeNot absolutely has one and it’s 50% off. Do yourself a favor and just download it and start saving.   Digit Digit is sort of like that 4-eyed accountant that takes a look at your spending habits and tells you how much you’re capable of saving over a given period of time. That’s because it is, as the smart app that can help you strictly with reducing your spending habits to help you beef up your savings account. Once you link Digit with your bank account, it studies your income and spending habits and crunches these numbers into an algorithm to help you start the savings process without really thinking about it. Then every two to three days, the tool transfers small amounts of cash, typically between $1 - $150 dollars, from your checking account and funnels it to an FDIC-insured savings account. You are notified of these transfers via text message, kind of like the happy “clink clink” sound you heard as a child when you dropped quarters into your piggy bank.   Are there other money saving apps you use and love to stay on track? Let us know your favorites in the comments below.  

The use of utility, productivity, and business apps has exploded over the past few years. In fact, business apps were used 30% more in 2016 than they were in 2015. This increased use means apps are being developed and improved all the time, offering a world of functionality to your homescreen. Whether you’re working with a team or running a one-person operation, any busy entrepreneur can benefit from tools that help organize and streamline work, while saving time, money, and energy. Let’s look at some of the most popular apps that can simplify your life today. Project Management and Team Communication Apps for project management and team communication can keep track of progress and deadlines for entire companies or departments, individual projects and tasks. They allow scheduling, task delegation, and much more. Supervisors can easily see which workers are busy and which have time to be assigned additional tasks. Everyone involved in a project can access the information they need, see the calendar, provide updates, share files, and chat with other team members (in groups or one-on-one) in real time. The following apps are some of the most popular in this category, and each can be accessed on a smartphone, tablet or desktop: Slack Trello Flow These apps have some similarities in function, but you may find that one of them has specific features that best suit your team’s needs. Contractors working with multiple clients may find themselves using any or all of these due to their popularity and different client preferences. Information and Task Organization Entrepreneurs constantly juggle professional and personal obligations. You don’t want to let anything slip through the cracks, so keep track of everything with tools that save time and effort. Workflow The Workflow app combines the functions of a wide variety of apps into a single dashboard for streamlined use. That way, you can do everything inside a single app rather than spending time switching between them and hunting for information to get through your day. For example, you can see calendar reminders and tasks, make a PDF, save photos and create GIFs, respond to texts and emails, use social media, order lunch, and more. It essentially allows you to create your own personalized productivity app. Workflow works with smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches. MobileDay If you frequently participate in conference calls, MobileDay may be able to save you a lot of hassle. It gathers conference call times, phone numbers and access codes from your calendar and email so you can connect to the call easily, from virtually anywhere, with the touch of a button. When MobileDay indicates that it’s time, just hit the call button and it will find the most recent update of the call-in number and access code. This eliminates any scrambling to find a last-minute number change. The app dials for you and connects you to the call so you can concentrate on your business. Wunderlist There are many to-do list apps on the market, but Wunderlist is one of the most popular. This free app allows to you track personal and professional tasks, set reminders, and more. The Pro version allows you to share your list items with others for a fee, and includes file-sharing. The Business version expands its functionality to create a task/project management system shared by a whole team, which operates in a similar way to the apps mentioned above. Wave It shouldn’t require a lot of extra effort and expense just to get paid for the work you do. Wave is a service that streamlines the processes of invoicing, accounting, and receipt scanning with free software. Keep track of accounts payable and receivable, and stay ready for tax season. You can add Wave’s credit card processing and payroll functions for a pay-as-you-go fee. Food and Supply Delivery When you need food or other supplies, but don’t have time to leave work to get them, the ability to order out for delivery with an app can be a real lifesaver. Postmates works with a network of local couriers in a given area to deliver food, office supplies, sundries, personal items, and more. The service is available in more than 100 cities around the U.S. Since business apps are increasingly popular, new and improved apps are released frequently. Take the time to check out your options. You may find that you’re missing out on a great app that could solve some of your daily business challenges.