iWalking O&M
iWalking O&M is a notebook for routes.
Take a picture of a place — a photo of a crossing, a floor plan of the school, a screenshot of a map — stamp footprints and cues onto it in walking order, write or record what to say at each step, and out comes a document you can print, send to a colleague, and listen to again while you walk.
It is made for the people who teach movement: Orientation and Mobility specialists, teachers of the visually impaired, and families.
THE STORY
iWalking is from 2010: you made a pair of footprints walk across the map, and it came first in New & Noteworthy for iPad Navigation.
In 2011 a review appeared on its App Store page, from an Orientation and Mobility specialist. He was using the stamps — footprints, X marks, arrows, photos from the camera roll — to build and review routes with visually impaired students, and wrote that it worked with Zoom and with VoiceOver.
The app had found its audience without knowing it. This version does on purpose what that one did by accident.
WHAT IS IN IT
• Thirty-four stamps, each a distinct silhouette: left and right footprints, arrows and turns, doors, stairs, crossings, accessible pedestrian signals, curbs, handrails, poles, bus stops, warnings.
• The four landmark categories O&M actually teaches — visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory — each with its own stamp.
• A photo on any stamp: a picture of the real cue, taken from the point where you see it while walking. On the printed sheet it comes out large, next to its number.
• Every step has a short line, a longer note, and — if you want — your own recorded voice.
• "Follow the route": one step at a time, full screen, in very large type, read out loud.
• PDF export, designed to survive a black-and-white photocopier.
• The whole route in a single file — photos and recordings included — to send to a colleague, who opens it and edits it.
• "Export all routes": your backup, in a single file.
• Three ready-made routes to look at and change.
ACCESSIBILITY IS NOT A FEATURE HERE: IT IS THE PRODUCT
• VoiceOver everywhere. Every step announces its number, the stamp's name in words, what there is to say, and its attachments.
• The step list is a complete view, not a summary: read, edit and REORDER from there with two buttons, no dragging.
• No gesture is mandatory: rotating and resizing a stamp works with buttons too.
• Three themes, including yellow on black. Minimum 7:1 contrast on all text.
• Dynamic Type, plus a further enlargement inside the app.
• Nothing is conveyed by colour alone.
• When VoiceOver is on, the app stays quiet and lets it speak.
NO NETWORK. EVER.
No account, no server, no analytics, no ads, no in-app purchases. Everything stays on the device — which is also the only reason a route opens in an underpass or a corridor with no signal, which is exactly where it is needed.
Lose the phone and you lose the routes: that is why exporting is in the front row and not buried at the bottom.
IT IS NOT A NAVIGATOR
It does not tell you where you are, it does not reroute, it does not talk about metres. An O&M route is taught with landmarks, not with coordinates.
