mobile accessibility - kath moonan, vodafone
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April 22, 2013 1
10 April 2013
Mobile accessibility Devices and UE design
Presented by: Kath Moonan
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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
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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
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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
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Dynamic user experience Situation dependent abilities
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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”
April 22, 2013 7 http://www.haptimap.org/
April 22, 2013 8 http://www.haptimap.org/
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What are the most accessible devices?
What are their features?
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Research scope
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Scope
User needs
Vision
Cognitive
Motor
Hearing
Multiple
Older
This research focuses on vision impairments
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User needs
vision impairment
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Eye conditions - simulations
Age related macular degeneration
Cataracts Stargardt’s syndrome Tunnel vision
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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
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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.
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Vodafone research with RNIB
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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
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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
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Devices & solutions
Insert Confidentiality level | April 22, 2013
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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
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Touchscreens
No physical home key
Hard to find edges of touch
area Small icons
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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
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Inverse colours
!
Remember There is NO way for adjust low contrast colours. Always use good colour contrast (WCAG 2.0 AA/AAA)
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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
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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”
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Voiceover
Main means of interaction
• Explore by touch
• Flicking
• Rotor
• Siri (4S/5)
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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.
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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
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Android UI
!
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Browsing the web
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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.
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Mobile accessibility
• Walled garden suite of apps
• Additional cost
• Easier to use
• Reports of bugs from Android experts
• Doesn’t support 3rd party apps
!
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IOS / Android – answering a call
!
IOS 5 Android 2.+ Android 4.+
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Proximity
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Windows 7
Windows 7
• Useful text size and colour options
Issues
• Win 7- no assistive technologies
!
Accent colour & large text are useful features
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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
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Text size
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Text size
!
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Windows 8 tiles
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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.
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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
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What can you do
Insert Confidentiality level | April 22, 2013
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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
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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.
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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.
