A first principle, not an afterthought
At Comet Associates we build products that work for everyone — the able and the disabled community alike. Accessibility is a first principle in how we design and implement our software: it is considered from the very first sketch of a screen and the very first line of code, never bolted on at the end. We do not ship a product and then ask whether a disabled person can use it. We start from the assumption that they will, and we build accordingly.
Built by someone who depends on it
This commitment is personal. Comet Associates' founder and lead developer is completely blind and uses a screen reader every single day — to write the code, to test the software, and to live his life. Accessibility here is not a checklist handed off to someone else; it is the daily, lived reality of the person building the product.
He has spent years encountering a disappointing number of applications and products that were needlessly, carelessly inaccessible — software that could have included everyone with modest effort and simply chose not to. In this day and age, with the tools and the platform support that exist, there is no excuse for writing software that locks people out. We refuse to add to that pile.
What accessibility means to us
We support the full range of accessibility capabilities the operating system provides — not a convenient subset, and not only the easy ones. On Apple's platforms that means, at a minimum:
- VoiceOver — supported 100%. Every control is labelled with a purpose a screen-reader user can understand, every screen is fully navigable, the reading and focus order follows the visual layout, and the software stays completely usable with the screen curtain on and the display switched off.
- Voice Control — every action is reachable by spoken command.
- Dynamic Type / Larger Text — text scales to the largest accessibility sizes without truncating or losing content.
- Dark Interface, Sufficient Contrast, and Differentiate Without Colour — we use the system's semantic colours, meet contrast standards, and never rely on colour alone to convey meaning; a status is always paired with a shape, a symbol, or text.
- Reduced Motion — we honour the system setting and avoid motion that could disorient or distract.
As Apple adds new accessibility capabilities, we adopt them. Our standard is not "the minimum required to pass App Review" — it is the most accessible experience the platform makes possible.
How it shapes the way we build
Because accessibility is a requirement rather than an option, it shapes our whole process instead of a single pass at the end:
- Every screen, label, and spoken announcement is challenged at design time — does it give a screen-reader user the information they actually need, or is it noise?
- We test with real assistive technology on real devices, not only in a simulator — including full VoiceOver walkthroughs and screen-curtain use.
- On the web, every public page is run through an automated WCAG 2.1 A/AA audit and paired with real screen-reader review for the judgment calls a machine cannot make.
- Accessibility questions are answered before a feature is considered done — never filed away for "later."
Talking Tags: accessibility as the whole point
Our app Talking Tags is the clearest example of this philosophy. It is designed specifically for blind and visually impaired users — it turns ordinary NFC stickers into labels you can hear — so complete, dependable VoiceOver support is not a nice-to-have but a non-negotiable, defining feature of the product. Software whose entire purpose is to be heard has to be perfectly usable by ear, and we hold it to exactly that standard.
Found a barrier? It is a priority-one issue
We are committed to delivering the most accessible software possible on Apple's platforms — and we know that commitment is only as good as our willingness to fix what falls short. If you encounter any accessibility barrier in our software or on this website, we want to hear about it, and we treat it as a priority-one issue: something to be fixed first, not eventually.
Please reach us at feedback@cometassociates.com or through our contact page. Tell us what you were trying to do, what got in your way, and the device and assistive technology you were using, and we will make it right.