Mobile Accessibility

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