Beyond VoiceOver: making iOS apps accessible

Beyond VoiceOver
making iOS apps accessible
Sally Shepard // @mostgood
Wednesday, 3 September 14

What I’m going to cover
★ Disability & Accessibility
★ Accessibility on iOS
★ Adding support
★ Testing

Why your app isn’t
accessible...

Myths
• “It’s not that many people”
• “It's time consuming”
• “My app is too complicated to
be accessible”
• “I don't know how to test it”

What do I mean by
‘accessible’?

Disability

More than 1 billion
people live with some
form of disability

That’s 1 in 7 people

Growing population

Disability can make life
extremely difficult

We can use technology
to overcome challenges

How can we use
technologies in iOS to
overcome disabilities?

Vision

How is an iOS device
used by someone
with limited vision?

VoiceOver

VoiceOver replicates
the UI for users who
can’t see it.

VoiceOver speaks
36 languages

Available on
iOS & OS X

To extend VoiceOver,
users can also use braille.

Braille displays

Braille Keyboards

That’s pretty amazing!

Demo

Basics of the
Accessibility APIs

isAccessibilityElement
sendButton.isAccessibliltyElement = YES;

accessibilityLabel
- Label that identifies the accessibility element
- UIKit control: uses title
- Image-based controls definitely need to
specify this!
- Don’t include the control type
“Play”

accessibilityTraits
- Combination of traits that best characterise
the accessibility element
- UIKit controls: defaults to standard traits
- Combine traits with an OR operator
- (UIAccessibilityTraits)accessibilityTraits
{
return [super accessibilityTraits] | UIAccessibilityTraitButton;
}

accessibilityValue
- Used when a element
has a dynamic value

accessibilityHint
- Describes the outcome of performing an action
- Don’t make it sound like a command
- Start with verb describing result
- Keep it brief
Note: can be disabled by user
“Plays the song”

accessibilityHint
- Describes the outcome of performing an action
- Don’t make it sound like a command
- Start with verb describing result
- Keep it brief
Note: can be disabled by user

Adding support to a
Xib or Storyboard

- Enable accessibility
- Fill out Label and Hint
- Add traits

Adding support
programmatically

Simple example of
adding support
UIButton *sendButton = [UIButton buttonWithStyle...];
[sendButton setAccessibilityLabel:@”Send”];
[sendButton setAccessibilityHint:@”Sends message”];
UISwitch *visibleSwitch = [UISwitch new];
NSString *switchValue = [visibleSwitch isOn]?@”Visible”:@”Invisible”;
[visibleSwitch setAccessibilityValue:switchValue];
MyCustomControl *myControl = [MyCustomControl new];
[myControl setAccessibilityTraits:[super accessibilityTraits] |
UIAccessbilityTraitButton]; //Bitwise OR traits together

This is great if your
app is really basic...

...but apps have
moved beyond the
basics.

Find out if user has
VoiceOver on
BOOL isVoiceOverOn =
UIAccessiblityIsVoiceOverRunning():

Moving VoiceOver focus
UIAccessibilityPostNotification(
UIAccessibilityScreenChangedNotification, self.goButton);

UIAccessibilityCustomAction
You can add multiple actions to an element.
UIAccessibilityCustomAction *trashAction =
[[UIAccessibilityCustomAction alloc] initWithName:@"Trash"
target:self selector:@selector(trashMessage)];
UIAccessibilityCustomAction *moreAction =
[[UIAccessibilityCustomAction alloc] initWithName:@"More"
target:self selector:@selector(moreOptions)];
UIAccessibilityCustomAction *activateAction =
[[UIAccessibilityCustomAction alloc] initWithName:@"Activate"
target:self selector:@selector(activate)];
cell.accessibilityCustomActions = @[trashAction, moreAction,
activateAction];

UIAccessibilityContainer
Specify the order VoiceOver should go
through the elements.
@property (nonatomic, strong) NSArray *accessibilityElements;
self.accessibilityElements = @[self.imageView, self.headlineLabel,
self.summaryLabel, self.twitterButton, self.facebookButton,
self.emailButton];

- (BOOL)accessibilityActivate;
-This gets called when a user double-taps.
-Good for elements where a gesture is used
to normally activate it.
Return YES or NO depending on success.

Direct Interaction
- (UIAccessibilityTraits)accessibilityTraits
{
return UIAccessibilityTraitAllowsDirectInteraction;
}

Accessibility notifications
UIAccessibilityPostNotification(NAME, PARAMETER);
(UIAccessibilityPageScrolledNotification, @”Top of list”)
(UIAccessibilityAnnouncementNotification, @”New message”)
(UIAccessbilityLayoutChangedNotification, NSString or UIView)
etc...

Magic Tap
Two-finger double-tap
- (BOOL)accessibilityPerformMagicTap
{
[self doAwesomeThing];
return YES;
}

Getting back
two-finger, scrub back and forth
- (BOOL)accessibilityPerformEscape
{
// Dismiss your view
return YES;
}

Not using UIKit?

It’s still possible!

Implement
UIAccessibilityContainer
protocol
CustomContentAccessibility sample code
from WWDC 2013

Testing VoiceOver

Have a plan

Test plans
User Stories
Use Cases
Requirements

The simulator

Accessibility Inspector

On a device

Accessibility shortcut
Triple-tap the home button

Siri - turn VoiceOver on

Screen curtain
Three-finger triple-tap on the screen

User testing
- @AppleVis (http://www.applevis.com)
- WWDC labs
- Charities and local councils
- Support groups

Physical / Motor skills

How does a person
with limited physical/
motor skills use iOS?

Assistive Touch

Switch Control

Setting up
Switch Control

Adding support

Switch Control finds
elements that have
actionable behaviour.

Basically, if you’ve added
support through
UIAccessibility APIs then it
should work.

Testing Switch Control

User testing

Learning Difficulties

How does someone
with learning
difficulties use an
iOS device?

Guided Access

How does Guided
Access work?

Adding support
UIGuidedAccessRestrictionDelegate

New in iOS 8

Visual Accommodations
BOOL UIAccessibilityIsBoldTextEnabled();
BOOL UIAccessibilityIsReduceTransparencyEnabled();
BOOL UIAccessibilityDarkerSystemColorsEnabled();
BOOL UIAccessibilityIsReduceMotionEnabled();

Why should you add
accessibility
support?

"When we work on
making our devices
accessible by the blind,
I don't consider the
bloody ROI."
- Tim Cook

More users.

Accessibility is
for everyone.

Craftsmanship.

It’s it the most
amazing thing
you can do as a
developer.

How many apps are
accessible?

This slide
intentionally left
blank

How can we improve
this?

Think about
accessibility from the
start.

Don’t put accessibility
in the backlog.

If you have some
open source code,
add accessibility
support.

If you use some
open source code,
add support and do
a pull request.

Talk about it more.

Get involved with
charities / councils /
groups.

There’s still a lot to do.

What are some
things you can do?

Spend a whole day
with VoiceOver or
Switch Control

Take one weekend
and do something
with accessibility

The Eyewriter

Work with a charity
to run a hackathon or
hack day

As a developer,
it’s up to you to
make your app
accessible.

Facts
✓ It’s a lot of people
✓ It's simple
✓ No app is too complicated to
be accessible
✓ Testing is straightforward

Resources
Tessting Accessibility on iOS:
developer.apple.com/library/ios/technotes/
TestingAccessibilityOfiOSApps
Sample code for non-UIKit:
developer.apple.com/library/ios/samplecode/
sc2216
Accessibility programming guide for iOS:
developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/
UserExperience/Conceptual/iPhoneAccessibility
Impairment Simulator Software:
www.inclusivedesigntoolkit.com

Thank you!
Sally Shepard // @mostgood

Beyond VoiceOver: making iOS apps accessible

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