The makers of Procreate took home a coveted silver cube this year.
A longstanding tradition, Apple held this year’s Apple Design Awards at Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in Cupertino earlier this month. The company announced the winners in a press release, touting twelve “best-in-class apps and games”; honorees include Breakpoint Studio’s Slopes for Interaction and Lux Optics’ Halide Mark II for Visuals and Graphics. What the Oscars and its signature statue are to the film industry, the ADAs (as the award is colloquially known) and its signature silver cube is to the Apple developer community.
Even more traditional is the way Apple spotlights the disability community with the ADAs. Staying true to their ethos, the company historically has reserved a category representing accessibility or inclusivity. Past winners in this space include Workflow (later acquired by Apple and transformed into Shortcuts), Blackbox, and djay. Last year’s winners were Voice Dream Reader and Be My Eyes. In 2022, the winner for Inclusivity is Savage Interactive’s Procreate.
The euphoria over Apple’s applaud of their hard work remains fresh for the team, who are based in Australia. “I’m really looking forward to letting everyone touch it [the cube] because they were super excited [about the win],” said Procreate’s Chief Product Officer, Claire d’Este, in an interview with me earlier this week.
Apple touts Procreate on iPad as “[bringing] people more creative power” through its stellar accessibility. The software has long supported Apple’s VoiceOver screen reader, but the team went further. They added tremor and motion filtering, an in-app assistive touch menu, audio feedback, and settings for color blindness.
Procreate has an in-app AssistiveTouch panel for those who can’t directly interact with the display. … [+]
According to Procreate founder and chief executive James Cuda, the app has always had fairly rudimentary support for accessibility beyond the aforementioned VoiceOver. Procreate has been built to attract “widely available to as many people as possible” by adhering to basic tenets of accessible design like limiting cognitive load and maximizing legibility via high contrast. Still, they wanted to do even more, Cuda told me. Last year, the team embarked on building a massive software update that would eventually net them Apple Design Award recognition.
“What was interesting about [planning the update] was when we started approaching the features, we didn’t want to just tick a box and just include stuff [Apple’s Accessibility APIs] from iPadOS,” Cuda said. “[There’s] nothing wrong with that, of course, but we didn’t feel it really went to the level it needed to go for artists. So with that in mind, we built a whole new suite of tools for artists.”
Along the way during the development process, Cuda and team discovered there weren’t many artistically-tuned features that were also accessible to disabled artists. Much of the functionality, the color blindness settings being a prime example, were things people had on their wishlist for a long time. Procreate now accommodated that. Pushing harder on the momentum meter, the team reached out to members of the disability community for even more insight on what they needed and wanted from Procreate. “We just kept pushing further to see how we could make [the app] more approachable for more people,” d’Este said.
Broadly speaking, both d’Este and Cuda were effusive in their excitement not merely for winning a shiny, precision-milled block of aluminum—they’re ecstatic that they were able to accomplish their goal of making Procreate more accessible and approachable to everyone. “It was always something we wanted to do,” d’Este said. She added they “expect to get a lot more feedback” now due to the influx of people who heretofore couldn’t use the app. The team welcomes all feedback, positive or not, if it helps them make Procreate better for all, regardless of ability.
Looking towards the future, d’Este said the plan is to “keep up to date with anything Apple releases [accessibility-wise].” They hope to explore innovative ways to interact with the iPad if you can’t actually touch the screen, like using eye-tracking to mark the screen instead of a finger or Apple Pencil. Whatever ships in coming versions, one thing is certain: the Procreate team’s idea bucket runneth over with potential improvements. They aren’t resting on their laurels.
Ultimately, the gratitude over their work is what pushes Procreate forward.
“It’s [the feedback] very humbling,” Cuda said. “We never get tired of hearing people who not only just enjoy the product, but [it’s] having a meaningful impact on their life. [That sentiment] never gets old. It’s like an energy.”
d’Este seconded Cuda’s comments, saying the good will is made even sweeter given they’re located continents away. “We live here at the end of the world, she said. “So it’s good to know that we’re making an impact in the greater world.”
