Mobile Accessibility

Mobile Accessibility
An open discussion

• Accessibility Features
• Mobile devices offer features to support users with various disabilities
  • Text zoom, screen zoom, cursor magnification and highlighting, on-screen keyboard, text-to-speech, audio, high visibility visual display modes
• Apps can add specialized functionality
  • QuestVisual's Word Lens reads signs and translates them to a different language
    • http://questvisual.com/
  • Humanware's Oratio screen reader
    • http://www.humanware.com/en-usa/products/blindness/oratio_for_blackberry_smartphones/_details/id_131/oratio_for_blackberry_smartphones.html

• The challenge of the touch interface
  • Smartphones and tablets generally are designed with "natural user interfaces"
    • By using touch gestures your can manipulate the user interface
  • What does touch interaction mean to people with various disabilities?
• Current state of mobile accessibility
  • Summarized in an IBM presentation at CSUN 2011
    • http://www-03.ibm.com/able/news/downloads/IBM_Advancing_Mobile_Usability_for_Everyone_CSUN_2011.pdf
  • Smartphone market as of 8/2010 consists of 24% iPhone, 20% Android, 38% RIM (Blackberry)
  • iPhone has VoiceOver voice browser built in, other smartphones require a 3rd party app
  • iPhone supports ARIA, somewhat
  • iPhone and Android support HTML5, somewhat
  • Andoid offers tactile (haptic) feedback
• Mobile Apps
  • Native apps
    • Run on the mobile device
    • Need to be written for specific device type using that devices toolset
    • Often draw content from information services elsewhere, such as RSS feeds
    • Native App Resources
      • Designing for Accessibility - Android Developers
        • http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/design/accessibility.html
      • iOS Accessibility
        • http://developer.apple.com/technologies/ios/accessibility.html
  • Web apps
    • Types of Web sites
      • Standard Web pages
        • Often have wide fixed widths, small fonts, low contrast, complex navigation
        • Difficult to use on a mobile; much zooming, scrolling, hitting the wrong links
      • Mobile friendly sites
        • Usually have flex designs, thorough use of relative size measures, large "tappable" links, simple navigation menus, simple hierarchical site structure
        • Could have a user interface for interaction (example: make a restaurant reservation), but takes some close attention to use it
      • Mobile optimized sites
        • Very simplified page design, flex design or auto-sizing to mobile screen size, very simple navigation, large tappable links and buttons.
        • If written with HTML5 can have many user interface features that are designed for use on mobiles, such as spinners, sliders, and forms that automatically evoke the appropriate keyboard
        • Could have functional interaction interfaces, to the extent care is taken to design for mobile devices
    • Can also draw content from Web services
    • May use HTML5
      • HTML5 is not standardized yet, variation among implementations
      • Many devices do not understand HTML5, but iPhones and recent Androids do, each in their own way
    • Different from mobile friendly Web pages, which are Web pages that display well and are reasonably usable on mobile browsers
      • Usually have flex designs, large tappable links, simple navigation
    • Web App Resources
      • Luke Wrobelwski
        • http://www.lukew.com/
      • Mobile Safari Web Application Tutorial
        • http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/AppleApplications/Conceptual/Dashcode_UserGuide/Contents/Resources/en.lproj/MakingaWebApp/MakingaWebApp.html
• iOS Native App Accessibility Support
  • Apple things supporting accessibility is good business
    • Apple's Commitment to Accessibility
      • http://www.apple.com/accessibility/
  • Matt Legend Gemmell, an independent Apple OSX and iOS developer, says it is easy to add accessibility support to your app
    • http://mattgemmell.com/2010/12/19/accessibility-for-iphone-and-ipad-apps
    • Built-in VoiceOver support in UIKit gives you 80% accessibility support
    • You can up that to 95% by configuring Interface Builder
    • You ccan up it to 100% support by using some "incredibly trivial methods"
      • Doubt was expressed about Deep Geeks who say something is trivially simple
• Android Accessibility Support
  • Android Developer site says Androids have an accessibility layer that helps users navigate their devices more easily
    • http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/design/accessibility.html
  • Apps are specifically available for people who are blind or have low vision
    • Mobile Accessibility for Android - a suite of programs
      • http://www.codefactory.es/en/products.asp?id=415