Overview of ios Accessibility, a look at what is on offer for a11y support in apps and also how the a11y api architecture works in ios. Talk given in August 2016 at Dev World Melbourne Australia's national OSX conference.

1. The Good,
The Bad,
The Voice Over
Aimee Maree Forsstrom
Technical Director
Aug 29-31, 2016
@aimee_maree

2. Who am I?
Aimee Maree Forsstrom
Old School Technologist — Born before the classic
mac was (something Princess Josh reminded me)
Educational Research - Academic and paid researcher
Principal Engineer - Marcel Sydney
Accessibility Advocate - ADHD / ASD / SPD
Someone who wants to help people
A Problem Solver! and that I think is the most
important

3. Why am I here?
I have been working in technology since the early days
(when flashing gifs where actually how we animated)
My main passion in technology has been how humans use
technology and the human connection to tech
When I was being taught to code I was told don't worry
about making your code accessible… Challenge
accepted…
Solutions Architect and developer for many Aussie
accessible websites
As I like to say all great things start with a story…

4. Disclaimer
I told you there would be iOS code examples
I am a web developer and web/email systems
administrator by trade
Y'all probably know iOS better then me
So lets chat about how the API works and discuss
some ways to change our thinking of accessibility
when designing and developing Apps

5. Accessibility Matters
Estimated 15 percent of the worlds population live with
some kind of impairment -
2011 WHO World Report on Disability
Ageing population
Increase in diagnosis of cognitive and sensory
differences (ASD, ADHD, SPD)
Time Poor
Because you make Apps for People
Increased Market Share as you cater for wider audience

6. History
in 2009 Apple released Voice Over feature on iOS 3.0
If you have an iPhone higher then iphone3 it includes the UI
Accessibility programming interface
Part of iOS SDK
Accessibility checker built into xcode simulator
Accessibility attributes available in interface designer

7. OSX / iOS and
Accessibility
Apple is actually pretty good at having a similar accessibility
experience across devices
They have for a long time had an actual accessibility team
iPad and iPhone have become an assistive aid for many
people with disabilities (in certain circumstances the
government will give you a grand under NDIS for an ipad)
Sorry Android… but after using VoiceOver on iphone
Android is a poor experience
Google maps horribly inaccessible, however Apple Maps is

8. Accessibility Assistance
Or as I like to call it Human Assistance
Lets look into some differences in humans that
iOS caters for

9. Cognitive Assistance
Guided Access
Introduced in iOS 6 to help people with cognitive
differences and sensory challenges to focus on a
single app to provide an uninterrupted learning
experience
iOS 8 introduced with Time Limits (above), which
guides a child through transitions to prepare them to
move on to the next activity in a scheduled series

10. Visual Impairments
Voice Over on iOS it works with touch sensitive - it can tell the
user what is under there finger
Speak Screen - it can read your screen for example emails this
can be turned on with Siri or your fingers
Siri - can be used to activate other accessibility features as well
as assist you with reading your emails, tweets
Dictation - need to send a message? with dictation you can
simply speak it
Braille Keyboard - Last time I checked I think Apple supported
around 56 Braille keyboards

11. Hearing Impairments
Captions - You can caption movies but you can also caption
your application when a noise occurs
Hearing Aid - There is a long list of different hearing aids
supported
Mono Audio - Removes the left and right track this is useful
for people with hearing issues in only one ear etc

12. Motor Impairments
Switch Control - Interaction without touching the screen this
allows you to point at elements using a gliding cursor
Select elements and actions via external switches that can
be activated with head, chin, limb
Can work with simple sensitive controls, sip and puff and
motion

13. The Good, The Bad, The Voice
Over

14. Lets look at VoiceOver?
Accessibility API is a way to talk to AT aka VoiceOver
Lives in UIKit in UIAccessiblity.h
Can access individual items in the user interface
Query for its STATUS, STATE and DESCRIPTION
Perform ACTIONS and EVENTS

15. Accessibility
Architecture
App
1. User presses compass app
2. VoiceOver asks
"Whats the element at this position"
3. The app looks to its code bundles up
the info and sends it to Voiceover RPC
4. VoiceOver knows the actions
and attributes of the element
and performs needed action

16. Its all about the
Attributes
(BOOL) isAccessibilityElement - does the element have
accessibility features
(NSString *) accessibilityLabel - the description
(UIAccessiblityTraits) accessibilityTraits - is it a button is it
selected
(CGRect) accessiblityFrame - onscreen rectangle [container]
(NSString *) accessibilityHint - provides additional help
(NSString *) accessibilityValue - indicates dynamically
changing element [changing states]

17. Accessibility Traits
App
Static Text
Button
Image
Traits also
have Traits
Traits define behaviours
The play button will start
music
When user presses button
VoiceOver knows to stop speakin
and let the media playStarts Media Session

18. Interface
Builder has
Accessibility
functionality
build in,
makes it easy
to add
accessibility
into your App

19. So its simple then?
Standard UI Elements have the accessibility features
included
However
Custom Elements do not, so this is where you need
to add them yourself and think about the actions you
need VoiceOver to perform

20. Voice Over Gotchas
Voice over takes over the gestures on your phone
It changes how your phone is controlled
Touch to select and double tap to operate
Why? Focus… Screen Readers need focus and
users need to know whats under their fingers
Remember your users don't all speak the one
language, so localise your app

21. Development
Localise your app - remember your audience is
international
Errors - make sure your communicate in simple
language with text clearly
Remember Containers can be a trap, it will start on
the high level UI container and then drill down

22. API Calls for media
(void) awakeFromNib {
UIControl *control = [[UIControl alloc] initWithFrame:frame];
control.isAccessibilityElement = YES;
control.accessibilityLabel = @"Play";
[window addSubview:control];
}

23. Whats wrong with this scenario?
So lets think about a scenario where you are
wanting to convey a historical story about World
War II Diary letters, the creative might think I know
lets add a fading song in the background and
include snippets of soldiers speaking…

24. Think through your application
Design is creating something functional, lets think about the
functionality of our design
Think about scenarios that you might find yourself in?
Your on the train your listening to music you see a tweet that
says check this cool site out and you click the link… In an
autoplay world what happens?
does your audio overtake the music app? does your audio
interfere with VoiceOver?

25. Change your approach and
language
See what we did there? We did not need to say “But
someone with a disability can not use this app or site” we
changed the language to “This will provide a negative user
experience”
But we want Sound and your degrading our user experience
So Lets make it not auto play, lets add a stop and pause
button so the user can control it?
Accessibility needs to be thought of as inclusive design,

26. Accessibility needs to happen at
Design
Before you code something draw it
Work through the workflow
Integrate inclusive thinking into your UX and design
Low Vision and Color Bilindness can also be thought of
as Sunlight Blindness - don't use colour alone to convey
information use colour and shape
Think about your timing, don't limit actions to time
constraints

27. Screen Readers, Screen
Readers…
Mac OSX Voice Over Safari/Firefox
Mac OSX NVDA Safari/Firefox
Mac OSX JAWS Safari/Firefox
iOS Voice Over
Windows Phone Narrator
Windows JAWS Internet Explorer/FireFox/Chrome
Windows NVDA Internet Explorer/FireFox/Chrome
Linux ORCA Firefox/Chromium
… the list keeps growing and the user experience varies greatly

28. There is no industry
standard
So when your developing a desktop Application
you need to speak to the Operating System
accessibility APIs
For Mobiles its the phones Operating Systems
accessibility features
For the web its the browser and screen reader
combination and this can get complex

29. What can we do?
Build accessibility into your release cycle
There are accessibility frameworks for testing
The iOS Simulator has a built-in Accessibility
Inspector. It displays all the accessibility data of
any given object on screen (just click on it)
Think about inclusivity of your website or app at
the design stage

30. Accessibility is not easy…
You will need to educate people
You will need to add extra time to development
You will need to learn new tools
You will need to test
You will need to fix the bugs
You will need to retest