Holy moly! VoiceOver is indeed on Apple Vision Pro, and a ton of other accessibility features, and they seem to have thought this through quite thoroughly. This #WWDC presentation shows how to make a game accessible, and it even introduces some of the basic gestures VoiceOver on Apple Vision Pro uses. https://developer.apple.com/wwdc23/10034
I would like to hear from people using screen readers. Do you prefer the hashtags to be intermingled in the body of the message, or separately at the end?
If you are #blind and you have been locked out of being able to use your InstantPot after the inaccessible app update, please email support@instantpot.com and refer to Case 02284154 asking that they restore #VoiceOver#accessibility to their #iOS app.
I got the green light to go hunting for a blind audiobook narrator! I believe in putting my money back into the community, so anyone know where I can find some blind audiobook narrators? #VoiceOver#AudioBook#Publishing
If you're a #blind#Mac user, you may have never found a use for that bizarre combination of keys which is VO+Shift+F3. this disables cursor-tracking. Let me show you why this may in fact, be one of #VoiceOver's best hidden features you didn't know about.
Why_Turning_Off_VoiceOver_Cursor_Tracking_can_be_Really_Useful:
I was just notified of the @AppleVis hall of fame vote having reopened for another round. I was disappointed to find that @MonaApp was not included with the nominees. However, there is a selection "Other" in the list that then allows you to enter an app name of your choosing. So if you think Mona for Mastodon should be inducted into the hall of fame for outstanding VoiceOver accessibility, and you are a #VoiceOver user on #iOS, I encourage you to cast your vote accordingly. The page is here: https://www.applevis.com/blog/cast-your-vote-now-2023-applevis-ios-app-hall-fame-inductees
If you were wondering whether the new #Sonos app is as bad with #VoiceOver as people said, I can confirm that it is.
The first element that receives focus has no #accessible role or name, i.e. VoiceOver doesn't announce anything for it. The screen is split up into sections, like "Recently Played", "Your Services", and "Sonos Favourites", but none of these have headings. And, as previously noted, explore by touch doesn't work; VO seems to just see that blank element I mentioned as being stretched across the entire screen.
As a result of all this, the "Search" button requires 32 swipes from the top of the screen to reach, at least with my setup. If you have more services and/or more favourites, that number of swipes will be higher. #accessibility
To post #SoundFiles on #Mastodon:
You do NOT have to make a #YouTube video, like in Twitter. You can post a #WAV or similar file right inside your toot. Insert it in as you would a photo, but search for the sound file on your device.
"Audio files can be any length, as long as the file size is under 40 MBs. The supported formats are MP3, OGG, WAV, FLAC, OPUS, AAC, M4A and 3GP." - @feditips
Ok, we got official word from Apple. that #VoiceOver WILL be on the #VisionPro headset. It was mentioned during the Platform State Of The Union. You can also use your index finger as a pointer. I am very excited about this.
For a while, I’ve been beta testing an #iOS app called #Topiary. It’s a helpful tool that lets you view and manage following relationships in Mastodon.
You can change the view so you see only people you’re following but are not following you, people who follow you but who you’re not following, and mutuals. #VoiceOver#accessibility is quite good. For example, when viewing people who follow you but you’re not following, the Actions Rotor is implemented so you can swipe down to follow, and double-tap.
What would be nice is if VoiceOver could speak the bio field for each profile without having to double-tap the name of each person. But it’s a very handy tool. Here’s the App Store link.
Sometimes, you might think that previous #accessibility wisdom has been superseded by new "facts". Maybe someone told you that #screenReaders don't work well with a particular design pattern, but you tested #ScreenReader X and it seemed to work fine. Perhaps you heard that an interactive HTML input doesn't persist with forced colours styling, but you tried a High Contrast mode in Microsoft Edge and it seemed to be there.
There are three considerations usually missing here:
How are you defining and evaluating the working state? Do you have a functional, accurate understanding of the #accessTechnology or accessibility feature you are asserting things about?
You tested one thing in relation to a statement about multiple things, e.g. a statement is made about screen readers, plural, and you only tested with #VoiceOver (it's always VoiceOver). Beyond posting on the web-a11y Slack, how do you propose testing more broadly, if you plan to at all?
Possibly the most critical at all: is this question worth its overheads? If answering it conclusively would require me to test ten screen readers with 45 speech engines, or seven browsers with 52 permutations of CSS properties, maybe following the advice is "cheaper" than determining whether the advice is still completely relevant.
Important disclaimer: this relates specifically to cases where following the advice would not actively make things worse for users.
TL;DR: when you know doing a thing won't make things bad, doing the thing is usually quicker than evaluating whether not doing the thing is also bad.
Day 162. A quick way for turning on, or off, #VoiceOver is by using Siri. Say something like: "Hey, Siri! Turn on VoiceOver", and you'll find yourself using VoiceOver in no time. You can also do the same with other technologies like Voice Control.
Quick and easy way of labeling photos in your photo library with [#BeMyAI:
Share the photo to the app and have it described.
On the description, swipe down to 'Copy' and double-tap. This assumes you're using #VoiceOver.
Hit 'Cancel' and return to photos.
Tap (singularly) on the photo, then two-finger double-tap, wait for the label element to come up, then paste the description you just copied here.
This is equivalent to going via the More >Markup >Add >Description method. VoiceOver actually adds the alt-text in the same space quickly and easily.
Hope this helps someone.
If you are a #VoiceOver user on the #Mac and use #Firefox#Nightly as your browser, I encourage you to update to the latest build. A remaining text bug affecting multiline text fields and blank lines, has just successfully landed and been verified fixed. An approval request has also been issued to uplift this to the current Firefox 114 beta phase, so the next full release will also receive this bug fix. So, editing in multiline text fields is now much more accurate than before, and no wrong lines are being read any more. Thanks to the team for a swift solution to this bug! #accessibility
There aren’t a lot of examples of #macOS#VoiceOver scripts out there, so we made a small collection that range from truly useful to the mainly demonstrative. Have something you’d like to see added to the collection? Let us know! You can download the collection from our website here: https://draconis.llc/misc/ #AppleScript#dev#development#accessibility#a11y
Using voiceover on IOS in none English languages isn't always a smooth experience.
Bugs can remain unaddressed for years.
For example, a simple translation error that had voiceover speak the Power Off button as: "Power source is off". Has finally been addressed in the IOS 17.2 beta. This bug has only been arround since Hebrew was added to voiceover in IOS 8.
Another translation error that has voiceover say: "Shape control tool", instead of: "form controls" in the rotor, still remains.
Moreover, IOS 17 has introduced a serious bug where every apostrophe is spoken as: "xd7xb3", and it is still present in beta 17.2.
iOS Shortcuts. I know some people are interested in learning more about iOS Shortcuts. So I wanted to send out a reminder that, last year, Darcy Burnard, from the Maccessibility podcast, did a 10 part series on understanding and using shortcuts. If you are interested in iOS shortcuts, I would highly recommend checking out this series! You can find it on the ACB Community podcast. You can either join the podcast through your favorite podcast app, or go to the website link at the end. Now there is many different things posted to this podcast feed. But just do a search for Understanding Shorcuts, and this will filter them out. The series ran last year from January 23rd to April 10th. Thanks again to Darcy for putting in the time and doing this series! I personally listen to them through my podcast app, but here is the website link if you want it. https://acb-community.pinecast.co. #iOS#Shortcuts#Tip#UnderstandingShortcuts#Blind#Voiceover@DHSDarcy
The developer of MacTracker has responded to my request that he make the Mac version of his app accessible via VoiceOver. He asked me for names of folks who would be willing to test and provide constructive feedback. I’ve got some usual suspects I can ask but I thought I’d throw it out there to the community.
DM me to send me your email address if you’re interested.
#VoiceDream apparently now has beta Kindle support in the main app, i.e. a beta version isn't required. There are reports on the mailing list that you need to be a subscriber to see it, that there should be a "Kindle beta" option in the "Settings" menu, and that you can't lock the screen or background the app while reading a Kindle book. I subscribed and updated the app, but it isn't showing up for me, so I don't know any more than that.
Kindle doesn't appear in #VoiceDream as a standard content source. Instead, Amazon's web reader is embedded into the app, and the book text is extracted from the web page to be spoken.
This means that Kindle isn't deeply integrated into the rest of the app, and results in the majority of Voice Dream features being unavailable. You can choose a book and start audio playback, but not access bookmarking, text highlighting, annotations, full-text search, the built-in dictionary, etc. More fundamentally, standard book navigation (e.g. by heading) is not possible either. You can skip by page, and that's all.
I don't know if the features aimed at other audiences, such as finger reading and word highlights, work or not. I would suspect not, given the webview-based architecture, but I haven't been able to verify either way.
Meanwhile:
Playing a Kindle book doesn't register it as your "currently reading" item. If you relaunch the app, or close the Kindle viewer, you have to locate the book in Amazon's web interface from scratch.
Speaking of Amazon's web interface, selecting a book to read happens entirely within it, bringing all of the accessibility issues along for the ride that you may expect from Amazon in 2024.
While Kindle content is playing, the #VoiceOver magic tap gesture causes whatever non-Kindle document you were reading elsewhere in Voice Dream to resume.
You can pause the playback of a Kindle book on AirPods. But when you try to resume, you also trigger the previous non-Kindle document.
On the two books I've tried, there are large pauses in the speech stream at frequent intervals, lasting almost a second. These don't seem to line up with page changes, and I'm not sure what causes them. Maybe something related to scrolling.
I pressed "next page" four or five times in quick succession, to jump past all of the copyright information in a book. Unfortunately, this caused playback to completely stop working, no matter how many times I toggled it.
It's June 10, 2024, at 4:00 PM Central US time. Almost every blind person that owns an iPhone has installed the iOS 18 beta. Some are playing retro games with the new, AI driven screen recognition. Others are gladly using DecTalk as their main voice, the Enhanced Siri voices that use ML to speak using emotion and context, as their reading voice, Eloquence as their notification voice (sent to one ear to minimize distractions), and finding it amazing that VoiceOver emphasizes italic text, and emboldens bold text. Others are finding it amazing that they can navigate their whole phone using Braille screen input, searching to find things by typing a few letters, or just swiping down through everything. A few are connecting their multi-line Braille displays, and feeling app icons and images, made much more understandable through touch, using an AI filter.
The next day, when news of all these features filters down to Android users, they quickly begin hammering Google, wanting DecTalk and Eloquence on their Pixel phones, like iOS users have. But Google is silent as always, only just now having given Chromebook users high quality Google TTS voices.
Note: great liberty has been taken to imagine the coolest outcome for the vague feature announcements Apple gave for VoiceOver users. We'll see just how cool, or not, they actually are on June 10.
Nutzt hier jemand auch #mona mit #voiceover und kann mir sagen, wie ich verhindere, dass ich auf den falschen Beitrag antworte? In letzter Zeit passiert es mir oft, dass VO einen Beitrag ansagt, die Interaktion jedoch zwei oder drei Beiträge darüber stattfindet. Führt manchmal echt zu Verwirrung und unnötiger Mehr-Arbeit. ^^
Hey if Sonos can just up and screw their UI then I can just up and decide to never use them for future speakers. Time to check the resale value of this garbage in case they can't fix the UI accessibility like yesterday.
@nick#Sonos has replaced its app not because they truly think the app is better. But because they can replace specialised Android, iOS, Windows, and macOS teams with one generic team who know how to use cross-platform tools.
It goes beyond that, though. Look at the ideas behind the new home screen, which essentially can be described as: "put what you want on it". Is that primarily a user-facing improvement? No.
Rather, it's a reason to not rely on designers who can carefully think through information architecture, viewport sizes, user flows, and the best ways to present information. Make it the user's problem so that they can fire the people whose responsibility it used to be, or move them to another team where they won't be able to do their best work and will eventually quit and not be replaced.
This update goes way beyond #accessibility. It's a fundamental shift in how they do business, and it will be shit for everyone. That, more than the lack of #VoiceOver support, is what will probably cause me to move away from their ecosystem.
Serious issues regarding VoiceOver on macOS
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