As someone who used Samsung phones up until two years ago, the iPhone's UX has always been confusing to me. Not because it was hard to adjust to but because the interface design feels strangely split between being overly simplistic in some areas but unnecessarily complicated in others. The fact that you could not place your apps anywhere you wanted to on the screen up until last year was bizarre to me. So, imagine my surprise when Apple announced the new design for iOS 26 revolved around the theme of “liquid glass”.
Starting from its first demonstration, people already had concerns about accessibility. The purpose of glass as a material is the ability to see through it after all (making it a bird’s archnemesis). So how exactly is the concept incorporated in the iPhone’s design system?
As seen in their press release video above, in reality, not a lot has changed. The actual user interactions of the design system remain pretty much the same, instead the visuals have changed, becoming more animated to fit the “liquid” aspect of the liquid glass concept. The places where users may see the most change are Apple app interfaces like the Camera app and iMessage, where this idea of “fluidity” has taken over.
As seen in the video above, the adaptive semi-transparent look of the new UI were designed with the intention of having features look seamlessly integrated into the screen, helping “free up valuable space for your content”. However, the interface walks a fine line between feeling seamless and becoming nearly invisible, raising questions about whether clarity is being sacrificed for aesthetics.
The image on the left is a screenshot of the photo gallery after clicking on a full screen image of a garden. How easy is it to see the buttons on the screen? Although users’ familiarity with the photo app allows for them to assume the buttons’ locations and functions, the UI seems to violate every principle of accessible design.
Princeton’s “Design for Accessibility” page provides a guide for accessible design principles following legibility, color contrast, flexibility, and intuitive interactions. Apple’s biggest violation is very obviously color contrast.
They note, “The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines require that text—and images of text—provide a contrast ratio of at least 4.5 : 1.” In the new “liquid glass” design, the buttons rely almost entirely on faint edges to differentiate themselves from the background. This subtle outline is often barely enough to make the controls visible, raising serious concerns about usability.
In order for the color contrast to successfully follow the accessibility guidelines, the difference would have to look like those on the left.
iOS 26 Version of the Camera App
iOS 26 Version of the Camera App
iOS 18 Version of the Camera App
The Camera app in particular highlights another one of Apple’s design flaws in the new iOS. In this version, when looking at the default screen, users can only see the “video” and “photo” features. These are the main features that people would use within the app, but all other shooting modes are hidden behind a horizontal scroll, making them far less visually accessible than in previous versions of iOS, where these options were clearly visible from the first screen.
Arguably one of the biggest changes on iOS 26 was the customizability of the home screen. In addition to the long awaited ability to place apps wherever you want, Apple decided to focus on letting users customize the aesthetic of their apps.
ScreenRecording_11-18-2025 01-11-43_1.mp4
Through this customization feature, users can adjust their home screen apps to appear in dark mode, clear mode, or a tinted mode that lets them choose any color for their app icons.
For users who enjoy customization, this feature is great. However, thinking from an accessibility standpoint, by allowing all app icons to adopt the same color or visual style, the interface becomes overly uniform, reducing the distinctiveness that helps users quickly recognize individual apps.