Hi Bhavesh,
Nicely summarised and a great overview for people like me who were
hesitant to upgrade to the new iOS.
Satguru
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-----Original Message-----
From: BHAVESH
Sent: Wednesday, 18 September, 2013 04:09 PM
To: Dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile
deviceslike phones and Tabs set up on November 15 2012.
Subject: [Mobile.AI] Overview of Accessibility Features in iOS 7
The long wait is over. It's finally here: iOS 7, the latest and
radically redesigned version of Apple's mobile operating system.
Along with the redesigned interface, iOS 7 has a number of new and
updated accessibility features which I will outline here (with videos
to come soon). I will organize these according to the kinds of
supports they provide.
The first thing you notice is that it is now easier to navigate to the
accessibility area in the Settings. In iOS 6, Accessibility was toward
the bottom of the General pane . In iOS 7, it is much closer to the
top of the pane, so that you don't have to scroll. A small change, but
one that hopefully will get more people to explore these settings and
to become aware of the powerful assistive technology that is built
into their devices. It will also aid with navigation for the people
who actually use features like VoiceOver and Switch Control.
Visual Supports
a.. Large cursor for VoiceOver: you can now choose to have a larger,
thicker cursor when VoiceOver is enabled. This is great for me, as I
always had a difficult time seeing the old cursor's faint outline.
This option is found at the bottom of the VoiceOver pane.
b.. Enhanced voices and language support: The Language Rotor option
for VoiceOveer has been replaced with a Languages and Dialects pane
which provides a lot more flexibility. In this pane, you can specify a
default dialect for your language (U.S. English, Australian English,
etc.) and add languages to the rotor like you could in iOS 6. For each
dialect or language, you can now download enhanced versions of the
voices as well as separately control the speech rate.
c.. VoiceOver's option to use phonetics now has a few options (off,
character and phonetics, and phonetics only), whereas before you could
only turn the feature on and off.
d.. You can use a switch to disable the VoiceOver sound effects.
These are the sound cues that let you know when you are at the edge of
the screen and so on.
e.. New options in the VoiceOver rotor: you can add the option for
turning sound effects on and off to the rotor, and there is a new
handwriting option for navigation. When this option is selected in the
rotor, you can use your finger to draw a letter on the screen and
VoiceOver will announce the number of apps with a matching name that
starts with that letter.
f.. Enhanced braille support: VoiceOver now supports Nemeth Code for
equations, and there is an option for automatic braille translation
(supporting U.S., Unified and United Kingdom options).
g.. The Large Text option is now called Dynamic Type and it can work
with any app that supports the feature rather than the limited set of
built-in apps in previous versions of iOS. The size of the text is
controlled using a slider rather than by choosing from a list and a
live preview shows how the text will appear.
h.. Bold type and other visual appearance adjustments: overall, iOS
7's new design has less contrast than previous versions. However, in
addition to large type, there are a number of adjustments you can make
to the UI to make it easier to see items on the screen. You can make
text bold (requires a restart), increase the contrast when text
appears against certain backgrounds, remove the parallax motion
effect, and enable on/off labels (I'm guessing this feature is for
people who are color blind. The feature will add a small mark to
indicate when a control is in the on/off position, which would be
helpful because green is used quite a bit throughout the interface and
the changes in state could be difficult to perceive for those who are
color blind to this color).
Auditory Supports
The big addition here is a Subtitles and Captions pane. This pane
brings the Closed Captioning support under the Accessibility area of
the Settings, whereas before it was found under Videos. It is a global
setting that will control closed captions throughout iOS.
In addition to having a global control for closed captions, the
Subtitles and Captioning pane also allows you to select from several
presets that make captions more attractive and easier to read. You can
even go further and specify your own styles for captions, with many
options ranging from font, text size, color and opacity to the color
and opacity of the box the captions sit on.
Learning Supports
Guided Access now allows disabling the Sleep/Wake and Volume buttons
in iOS 7. You can also access the other options in your triple-click
home shortcut (which has now been renamed the Accessibility Shortcut)
while Guided Access is enabled. This will allow you to use VoiceOver,
Zoom and other accessibility features along with Guided Access.
Like VoiceOver, Speak Selection has enhanced language support,
including selection of different speaking rates for each of the
supported languages and dialects as well as enhanced quality voices
that are available for download as needed.
Both of these features are also supposed to get new APIs which I will
verify once I can locate apps that implement them. For Speak
Selection, a new speech API will allow apps to tap into the built-in
voice support of iOS. The idea is that by not having to include as
much voice data, the apps can be smaller and take up less space on the
devices. In the case of Guided Access, a new API will allow developers
to hide parts of the screen to reduce distractions. This builds on the
previous version's feature of disabling touch in certain areas of the
screen.
The built-in dictionary feature now supports additional languages
which can be downloaded and managed in the Define popover. When you
select a word in a foreign language and tap Define, iOS will open the
definition in the appropriate language if you have that dictionary
downloaded. This is a nice feature for language learners.
Motor Supports
Probably the biggest addition in iOS 7 for accessibility is Switch
Control. This feature has the potential to do for people with motor
and cognitive impairments what VoiceOver has done for the blind
community. With Switch Control, items on the screen are highlighted
with a cursor sequentially, and when the desired item is highlighted
it can be activated by tapping the screen or a separate adaptive
device connected to the iOS device over Bluetooth. A menu can also be
brought up to access scrolling, saved gestures and a number of device
functions such as clicking the Home button. Switch control is highly
configurable in iOS 7:
a.. you can enable auto scanning and adjust the timing parameters
for the auto scanning feature, including the number of times it will
loop, how long you have to hold down the switch to activate an item
(hold duration) and so on.
b.. you can adjust the visual appearance and audio effects: for the
visual appearance you can choose a large cursor and select from a
number of colors for the scanning cursor (I actually wish this feature
were available for VoiceOver as well). For audio, you can choose to
hear an audio cue when the cursor advances, as well as enable speech
and adjust the speaking rate. This last feature may be helpful to
someone who needs to use a switch device but also has low vision and
needs the audio cues for the items on the screen.
c.. You can add multiple switch sources, and the switch source
supports three options: external, screen and camera. The first two are
pretty self-explanatory. You either tap on an external device or on
the iOS device's screen to activate an item. I set my iPad up to
interpret a tap on the screen as a select action and my external
switch (a Pretorian Bluetooth switch/joystick device) to pause
scanning. The last option is pretty interesting. The camera can be set
to recognize your head movements as an action, and you can assign
different actions to either a right or a left head turn. When a head
movement is added as a switch source an option for adjusting the head
movement sensitivity will be available. One thing to note is that you
should probably have your iOS device on a stand if you plan to make
use of the camera as a switch source. Otherwise, moving the device may
cause the camera to not recognize your face as desired.
Other
Although not considered an accessibility feature, the improved Siri
personal assistant with higher quality male and female voices could
come in handy for people with disabilities when they wish to look up
information or control their devices quickly. For example, Siri
recognizes a number of new commands: you can turn some of the settings
on and off with a simple command ("turn Bluetooth on," or "enable Do
Not Disturb"), or navigate to specific areas of the Settings with a
voice command ("open accessibility settings" or "go to accessibility
settings").
Similarly, the new TouchID feature (currently available only on the
iPhone 5S) should make it easier for individuals who are blind or who
have cognitive disabilities to access the information in their
devices. As great as VoiceOver is, entering text has never been a
strength, even when it is just a few digits on the lock screen. Using
the fingerprint reader built into the Home button of the iPhone 5S
(and hopefully future iPads) will make it easier to unlock the device
while also ensuring privacy. For individuals with cognitive
disabilities, the passcode becomes one less thing they have to
remember.
On the iPhone, the Control Center includes a Torch feature that uses
the flash to provide a constant source of light. I can see this
feature being useful for those who need to scan documents in order to
perform OCR. Along with the improved cameras in the new phones
released with iOS 7, the additional light could improve the
performance of the scanning apps used by many people with print
disabilities.
iOS 7 also added the ability to perform automatic updates for apps you
own. This could have some accessibility implications because you may
have an app installed that is accessible in its current version but
may become inaccessible after an update. To prevent this from
happening, you can turn off the option for automatic updates in
Settings > iTunes & App Store > Updates. The App Store also supports
the option for redeeming gift cards using the camera (a feature
already available on the Mac with iTunes). For individuals with low
vision, the redeem codes on iTunes gift cards can be difficult to
read, and this option to scan it with the camera makes the process of
redeeming gift cards much easier.
Of the new accessibility features, I am most excited about the
captioning styles and Switch Control. These two features build on
Apple's strong support for the blind community to extend accessibility
to even more people (especially so in the case of Switch Control and
its potential impact for people with motor and cognitive
disabilities). What are your thoughts? What are you most excited about
in iOS 7 with regard to accessibility?
--
with best regards,
Bhavesh.
Message composed on Dell vostro1440, using jaws for windows screen
reader.
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