Accessibility feedback regarding the new Plex Experience Preview

Plex Experience Preview
1

Hi all,

I recently joined the Plex Preview iOS TestFlight and wanted to share some feedback about using Plex with VoiceOver.

VoiceOver is a screen reader made by Apple that is built-in into all Apple’s operating systems that allows blind people to use those devices.

I love using Plex, but I’ve noticed a few areas where accessibility could be improved to make it even better for screen reader users like me.

  1. Profile Switching : When switching profiles, VoiceOver reads all the profile names in one go, making it hard to swipe through them individually.
  2. Library Navigation : Moving between libraries is tricky. VoiceOver doesn’t seem to work well here, so I either have to ask someone for help or use the screen recognition feature (OCR). While screen recognition lets me pick options on the screen, it’s not always reliable. Plus, VoiceOver mentions something about a “bottom sheet” or “sheet handle,” which I’m not really sure how to use.
  3. Video Player : The video player itself is completely inaccessible with VoiceOver. It doesn’t provide any feedback for basic controls like play, pause, skip forward or backward, or audio track selection.

Additionally, I’d like to request better support for subtitles with VoiceOver. Ideally, subtitles could be read aloud automatically by VoiceOver. If that’s not possible, it would be great to make the currently shown subtitle text visible as an element in the interface that VoiceOver can recognize and interact with.

I really appreciate the hard work you put into Plex—it’s such an amazing platform, and I’m a big fan! I just thought I’d share this feedback because improving accessibility could make Plex even more enjoyable for everyone.

Thanks for taking the time to read this! Please let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.

3 Likes
2

Thank you @quanchi0 for this great feedback. I have passed this along to our UX and Platforms team for review.

4

Thank you @chrisallen for passing this to the team.
One thing I forgot to suggest is to add headings for various sections like Recently added in X library, continue watching etc.

This will make it easier for people who use a screen reader to navigate around the app.