1. April 22, 20131
10 April 2013
Mobile accessibility
Devices and UE design
Presented by: Kath Moonan
1

2. 2 April 22, 2013
"I think anything that makes anyone's life
easier is going to make life even easier for
someone like me.”
Paul
Expert user with a severe motor impairment

3. April 22, 20133
Mobile can be life changing
Convenience and immediacy of smart (and feature) phones
can bring additional benefits for users with access needs
• Maps and location based services
– Transportation / independent travel
• Camera as a seeing device
– Money, labels
• Apps can be more accessible
– Task focussed, not having to go through clutter of website

4. April 22, 20134
Numbers – Sagentia research for Vodafone, 2009
30 million
Severe access
needs
136 million
Moderate access
needs
1.76 billion
Total population
720 million people are likely to have
difficulties using mainstream handsets

5. April 22, 20135
Dynamic user experience
Situation dependent abilities

6. April 22, 20136
Contextual design www.haptimap.org
“Many users are underserved, and even excluded, by the way products, services
and systems are designed.
Importantly, accessible design is not just about designing for people with
mild to severe impairments of chronic nature (e.g. fringe market), but also
about people with situation-induced impairments”

7. April 22, 20137
http://www.haptimap.org/

8. April 22, 20138
http://www.haptimap.org/

9. April 22, 201399
What are the most accessible devices?
What are their features?

10. 10
Research scope

11. April 22, 201311
Scope
User
needs
Vision
Cognitive
Motor
Hearing
Multiple
Older
This research focuses on
vision impairments

12. 12
User needs
vision impairment

13. April 22, 201313
Eye conditions - simulations
Age related macular
degeneration
Cataracts Stargardt’s syndrome Tunnel vision

14. April 22, 201314
Accessing the phone
• Blind and partially sighted mobile users rely on
the following adaptions to access mobile
phones:
– Screen reading (speech output)
– Screen magnification
– Text increase
– High contrast display
– Voice recognition
• A partially sighted user might combine
magnification, speech output and voice
recognition

15. April 22, 201315
Cognitive overload
When users can only see one portion of the
screen at a time or are listening to the UI, they
have to rely on memory much more.
This can quickly result in cognitive overload.

16. April 22, 20131616
Vodafone research
with RNIB

17. April 22, 201317
What devices & OS are most accessible to blind
& partially sighted customers?
In 2012 we asked RNIB to
investigate the accessibility of
mainstream handsets
Research was conducted
using expert review by sighted
and vision impaired RNIB
consultants.
Task based testing including:
• Out of the box experience
• Find-ability of accessibility
features
• Accessibility features help
• Effectiveness of settings
• Simple tasks for partially sighted /
blind user
• Making / terminating a call
• Answering a call
• Sending a message
• Browsing the web
Handsets / OS tested
4, 5
2.2, 2.3, 4.0, 4.2
Talks Screen reader
5, 6, 7 & Clarity theme

18. April 22, 201318
Key findings
• Touch screens are not universally more accessible
• Out of box accessibility is not universal across devices
• Accessibility settings are hard to find & aren’t applied
universally across the UI
• Proximity, findability and learnability are essential for
mobile accessibility
• Iphone 4GS+ is the most accessible device – but
expensive & learning curve can be steep

19. 19
Devices & solutions
Insert Confidentiality level | April 22, 2013

20. April 22, 201320
Touch screens
• The trend for devices without physical buttons is
not beneficial for many users with vision
impairments
• Physical keys / buttons (ones that require a
physical depression to activate) are easier for
blind and partially sighted users (for example, on
the HTC Desire and BlackBerry devices)
• Not all devices with keys are useful – the keys
are small – tactile indicators are not helpful

21. April 22, 201321
Touchscreens
No physical
home key
Hard to find
edges of touch
areaSmall icons

22. April 22, 201322
IOS – Best in class
Features
• Screen magnifier
• Screen reader
• Siri 4+
• Speak selection IO6+
• Magnifier + reader IO6+
• Increase text size
• White on black
• Assisted touch
Issues
• Even best in class is not
ideal – many obstacles
& a steep learning curve
• Independent set up
possible but tricky
• Settings are buried
• Text increase is not
universal across UI
• Inverse colours (high
contrast) is unsatisfactory
!
Inverse colours
Text increase Gesture help

23. April 22, 201323
Inverse colours
!
Remember
There is NO way for adjust
low contrast colours.
Always use good colour
contrast (WCAG 2.0 AA/
AAA)

24. April 22, 201324
Text increase
!
Remember
There is no effective way for
the user to adjust the
settings across the UI.
Text adjustments are not
applied on apps

25. April 22, 201325
Zoom improvements (IOS6)
There have been several enhancements
to the magnifier on iOS6:
• Text is much smoother at high levels
of magnification
• Zoom can be used in conjunction
with VoiceOver – though this is quite
tricky to use it’s possible to operate
• Can be used in conjunction with
other accessibility features, such as
Voiceover – operating both would
take soe practice but is possible
• What is perhaps more useful is
“Speak selection”

26. April 22, 201326
Voiceover
Main means of interaction
• Explore by touch
• Flicking
• Rotor
• Siri (4S/5)

27. April 22, 201327
Browsing the web
Remember
There is no way of overriding
pinch to zoom in Safari
No additional to assist sighted
users with access needs .
Zooming text makes it difficult to
read – no reflow in the viewing
port.

28. April 22, 201328
Android – techie’s choice
Features
• Screen reader
• Voice input
• Large text
• High contrast
Third party solutions
• Mobile accessibility app suite
Issues
• OS paradigm puts emphasis on
user to know what they need &
how to find/install it
• Difficult to use – user must be
techie and persistent
• Poor support for partial sight /
mild vision impairment (-4.0)
• Large text is not large!
• Accessibility settings are not
grouped
• Different manufacturers may skin
the OS differently
Poor text increase
Mobile
accessibility app
suite

29. April 22, 201329
Android UI
!

30. April 22, 201330
Browsing the web

31. April 22, 201331
Talkback
• The TalkBack voices are clear and easy to understand.
• However, the TalkBack functionality is very limited compared to Apple's VoiceOver.
• It's possible to touch and then tap most items to activate them, but this requires the user to know
where the item is on the screen, since there's no function that moves the focus to the next /
previous item using a gesture like with VoiceOver.
• VoiceOver also allows the user to tap anywhere on the screen to activate an item. TalkBack requires
the user to tap on the item itself, which is practice, is much harder.

32. April 22, 201332
Mobile accessibility
• Walled garden suite of apps
• Additional cost
• Easier to use
• Reports of bugs from Android experts
• Doesn’t support 3rd party apps

33. April 22, 201333
IOS / Android – answering a call
!
IOS 5 Android 2.+ Android 4.+

34. April 22, 201334
Proximity

35. April 22, 201335
Windows 7
Windows 7
• Useful text size and colour
options
Issues
• Win 7- no assistive
technologies
!
Accent colour & large text are
useful features

36. April 22, 201336
Windows 8
• Useful colour options
• Can flag accessible apps in windows
store
• Magnifier
• Developers can build speech recognition into
apps
Issues
• Microsoft did not release Narrator screen
reader with Windows 8 phone
• Text size increases not large enough

37. April 22, 201337
Text size

38. April 22, 201338
Text size
!

39. April 22, 201339
Windows 8 tiles

40. April 22, 201340
Nokia / TALKS
Features
• TALKS is a third party
combined screen reader and
magnifier (£150)
• Nokia offer a free basic
screen reader – suitable for
novice users
• Many blind and partially
sighted users find phones
with physical buttons and
keys easier to use than touch
screen devices
Issues
• Talks - Sometimes free from
network but support is
patchy – phone is sent away
for a week for installation
• Feature phone only
The Nokia C5 is one of the few
handsets left on the high street
that offers substantial physical
tactility.

41. April 22, 201341
Blackberry
Features
• Useful text increase and colour
options
• Text can be increased up to
50pt
• Low vision theme “clarity” is
available on OS 5
• Physical keys for receiving/
ending a call
• Keyboard is useful
• Text size in the the web browser
can be adjusted but depends on
how well the website is coded
Issues
• Keys are small and markings are
hard to see
• Screen reader retails for £400!!!
• Text can be scaled in browser but
may cause overlap
• Accessibility theme Clarity on
available in OS 5 Text increase in the browser can
create overlap
Changing text size

42. 42
What can you do
Insert Confidentiality level | April 22, 2013

43. April 22, 201343
Easy to see
• Test designs iteratively with simulators and users
• Use generous text size
• Ensure controls are easy to see
• Good colour contrast
• Provide a means to increase text size in the app
• NEVER suppress pinch to zoom
Remember
Not all users will know that
they can change the settings
in their phone or what
accessibility is
When text size is increased it
isn’t consistent across the UI
Don’t rely on the user
knowing how to
increase text size

44. April 22, 201344
Location, proximity and findability
• Group information & controls logically
• Important content located in important places on screen
Remember
Buried information is
hard to find.
Looking in different
places adds to cognitive
overload.

45. April 22, 201345
Screen reader access
• IA / navigation that supports screen readers
• Structural, semantically correct HTML should be used to facilitate the use of built-in
screen reader features such as jump to first heading, next list item etc.
• Good labelling – alt text, forms, landmarks
• Depending on the code order of the page, skip links should be provided to either the
main content or the page navigation.

46. April 22, 20134646
Thankyou
Kath.moonan@gmail.com