Apple iPad accessibility features - part 2 - speech

RNIB supporting blind and partially sighted people
the apple iPad and an overview of its accessibility features
Part 2 iPad accessibility features - speech Presented by Scott Chesworth
So the first thing I thought when I held an iPad as a totally blind person was
it's a massive touch screen how am I going to use it there's no buttons
we'll spend a couple minutes now showing you that it is just as accessible
as anything we are used to at the moment, it's different, it's a slightly different approach but it's no less accessible
so let's first of all take a look at the different ways of navigating around the touchscreen
we've got voiceover which is apple's in-built screen reader turned on
and anywhere I put my finger on the screen it's going to tell me which icon I've landed on
Contacts, contacts simple as that
the best thing about voiceover when you're getting started
is that if you touch something and you're not sure how to interact with it
leave your finger there for a couple of seconds and it will tell you exactly what to do next
so we'll touch contacts again and pause for a second
contacts, double tap to open
okay we can double tap to open
contacts, all contacts, and there you go we're in out contacts app
something that's important to note is that any gestures you do to control the iPad
when you've got voice over on
they apply to the last thing the voice-over spoke
so for example if we were to touch our contacts app
and we wanted to double tap to open it
we wouldn't necessarily have to double tap directly on the icon because contacts
was the last thing voiceover said so I can demonstrate that
contact contacts, touch contacts, double tap to open
double tap somewhere completely different on the screen
but we're still in the contacts app
it's not a big-deal on the screen the size of the iPad because you have a massive surface area to
work with and the icons are huge, but on a smaller screen like an iPhone if you're trying to use it
on the go you trying to use it one handed
you know any situation where you're accuracy isn't going to be dead on
it's worth knowing that any gesture you make
works on the last thing that was spoken
so to explore what else is on the screen
we can either take one finger
drag it around and literally explore the screen line-by-line voiceover will read as we go
Contacts, contacts again, notes, notes calendar, calendar, maps, maps
you get the idea
and if we move down to the next line
maps, iTunes, Youtube, iBooks, videos
okay it's great for learning the layout of your screen and
once you get familiar with the layout it means that you can go directly to any icon
but there's another way of exploring which is to flick left and right
so to flick put one finger on your screen give it a short sharp swipe to either the left or right
as if your trying to flick a bit of dust off the screen
what this does is it will move chronologically to the next or previous item on screen
the cool thing about it is
it's as consistent as pressing a button it's just a different motion
so if we start from contacts again, contacts I flick to the right notes, notes, calendar, calendar, maps, maps, video
and that "do do" sound you've just heard means we've racked down to the next line so you can keep track of where you are on screen
flick to the left, maps, we're back to line 4 calendar, notes contacts, and back to contacts again
the upshot of that is that when you're in a hurry
you just need to browse through all the items on screen if it's an app that you are not familiar with
you can flick just as quickly as you can press a button on your existing device
it's no slower than pressing a button
It does exactly the same thing
so my next question as a totally blind user was ok navigation feels pretty good
but how on earth am I going to type on this thing with no keys
I was used to you know texting on it and the numeric keypad, but it's possible
and we are going to demonstrate it for you now using the notes app so I'm going to touch notes, notes
I'm going to double tap to open, notes
and then I'm going to flick to find the add button for a new note, add, there you go, double tap
note text field is editing
and what we have there is the text field is editing which means that in the bottom of our iPad screen now
there's a qwerty keyboard that's popped up on screen
okay so same navigation techniques as before I'm going to put my finger down anywhere on the keyboard
and voiceover will tell me where I have landed
"R" now I've landed on an "R"
now I haven’t lifted my finger off even though that is not the key that I want because the way this works is that
when I lift my finger up
that's when I have committed to entering that letter
so I'm just going to drag to the right and move to the t because that's the first letter that I want
and then I'm going to lift my finger up once i hear t, and t will be entered t
there you go and you've got a
short little click when I lifted my finger up to let you know that that character has gone in
so now we're working with a qwerty keyboard but I can jump from the t and might be able to hit the h dead on, g,
no g golf. in which case drag to the right
h, h hotel lift my finger up
and t t y. there's an h entered
i, i, w a s, drag down and to the right slightly for an s, sierra, this
and then we can use the space bar, space auto correction this, this I s space is a, space a
t e s t
this is a test
space test
it's not ideal, I'm not going to lie to you
it's not ideal for sighted users either
touchscreen typing is fine for when you're on the go
and the good news is that there are plenty of options
if you've got an iPad you can get a doc which is basically like a holder with a keyboard
on the front of it and it slots into
very comfortable keyboard
alternatively you can pair up a Bluetooth keyboard and that's true for the iPhones, the iPads
and the ipod touches and
it's one more device to carry around but Bluetooth keyboards now are very small very slick
it means that if you're doing a lot of emailing, you're composing a lot of text on the road
anyone would want an actual hardware keyboard to type on
ok, and lastly let's have a look at some web browsing
so safari is the name of the web browser and we can page doc safari touch that
and double tap to open safari
RNIB supporting blind and partially sighted people
and it's opened on the RNIB homepage
so our flick gestures really come into play here because there's no way you're going to
memorize the layout of every single website you use so if we start from
let's say the top left of the page for example
RNIB home image, RNIB home now
you remember from before if we flick to the right it's going to move us down this webpage
item by item
so lets have a look at a few supporting blind, RNIB helpline, link
zero 3 zero, r s s feed, link, log-in link, list register, link help link, list start etc, etc, etc
but on pages like this, you know a home page with loads of content
it could take you forever to get to the content that you actually want to read
so we are going to introduce you to a new gesture this is called the rotor
now if you imagine holding a dial
between a couple of your fingers kind of like a, imagine a volume knob and what you're going to do
place 2 fingers on the screen of your iPad and twist to the right or to the left
as if you're turning that volume knob, links
form controls
not visited links
and each time I twist to the right or to the left I hear a different
set of elements that can I navigate by
so something you might be familiar with if you're a screen reader user is navigating by headings
let's flick through this rotor until we get to headings Images, static text, zoom
lines tables language characters words, headings, headings, now
whatever you're set to navigate by you
move by that element when you flick down or up
so now we've set it to headings we can just flick down and we'll go to the next heading
RNIB supporting blind and partially sighted People, heading level 1
flick down again the hardest-hit marched heading level 2 link and now we're into the news stories flick down
again online community heading level 2 link, online community
if you reach a heading the you actually want to read what's under that heading latest news
heading level 2, latest news sounds good
we can flick to the right again and that will keep us moving
from where we've just set ourselves up
but element by element again we are not moving by headings we flick to the right or left that
always moves chronologically employment support allowance and incapacity benefit changes act now heading level 3 link
blind people will lose £30 a week under new benefit regime
the coalition governments plans for people on employment
doom and glom we don’t need to read about that but you get the idea
so that wraps up what we are going to cover today
the important thing to remember is that all of the low vision and the screen reader
features that we've looked at that they apply
pretty much across the board of apples product line
so that's the iPod touch 3rd and 4th generation
the iPod nano even can do this any, iPod that's currently being sold other than the iPod classic
it applies to the iPad that's what we've been using today also applies to the iPad2
It applies to the iPhone 4 and the model before iPhone 3 GS but nothing earlier in the iPhone line
basically anything that's on sale at the moment from apple with the exception the iPod classic
best thing for you to do if you're interested in getting you're hands on one, you want to have a play, is to go down to
to you're local apple store or your local apple reseller you'll find that the staff are generally quite knowledgeable about accessibility
if you want to read up on all this before you go down to the store to actually have a play with
the device best place to head to is www.apple.com/accessibility
RNIB supporting blind and partially sighted people