Accessibility Features on iOS

The iPhone has a number of accessibility features built in to its operating system (iOS). These features not only make it easy for regular users to conveniently customise how their phone behaves, but also improve the usability for many people who have disabilities.

Among these accessibility features include:     

VoiceOver 

This feature is designed to help guide the blind. It is a gesture-based feature that reads the screen thus enabling you to use your phone even if you can’t see. It tells you everything, from the app you’re touching to battery level and more. This feature is enabled by going to settings, in the search bar at the very top type accessibility, VoiceOver can do things such as:

• Telling you what’s on the screen

• Description of images and reading of texts in images

• Typing on braille keyboard, unlocking the device and launching apps

• Pronunciation of words and phrases using the Pronunciation Editor

• Description of audio files

• Zooming of texts and pictures

• Adjustment of fonts

click through to the accessibility settings and turn on voice over.

Hearing Aid features

The Apple hearing aids are to be used by those with hearing impairments. Based on an innovative Bluetooth technology, the hearing aid features come with exclusive sound processors that deliver outstanding sound quality. The features are easy to customise and use. It can be paired with a hearing device and used in noisy environments. Among these features include Mono Audio and Live Listen. 

Mono Audio allows you to adjust the audio channels in both ears so you can enjoy a balanced sound. It is ideal in case you have a problem in one or both ears. 

Live Listen

Live listen uses a microphone to collect sound and make them clear to you. Textphone software is another cool feature that enables you to make calls without using any hardware. Textphone transcripts are stored in the call history. It also has a special keyboard with shortcuts for common textphone commands. 

Vibrating and Visual Alerts

Vibrating and visual alerts prompt you in case there is a phone call, mail or text message. Just set the LED flashlight to see when there is a notification. 

iMessage allows you to initiate a conversation without hearing a word or saying anything. With the feature, you can also send group messages to many people in different locations. 

Assistive Touch 

With AssistiveTouch, you can quickly adapt to your phone’s Multi-Touch screen. It supports gestures such as pinch, rotate, and shake and many more. You can make these features accessible with just a tap of a finger. 

Touch Accommodations

Touch Accommodations makes your device to adjust depending on how you touch it. It recognises how long you touch it or even repeated touches. 

Reading and Learning 

Those with learning disabilities like dyslexia can also enjoy accessibility features like Speak Selection, Speak Screen, Predictive Text or Typing Feedback. The features can be added to functions like writing messages, long documents or reading emails. 

Speak Selection allows you to highlight specific texts, sentences, and words you want to hear. Typing Feedback speaks out every single letter you type while Predictive Text provides suggestions of words you can choose to reduce spelling errors. 

Other accessibility features that make your reading smooth include Dictionary and Safari Reader. When stuck on some terms, the dictionary can help you. Safari Reader helps to reduce clutter when reading and navigating the web. 

Siri Shortcuts

This feature helps you to accomplish most of your day-to-day tasks. You can set it to remind you about making a reservation, send a message to someone or even make a playlist.  Only available from iOS 12 and later.

FaceTime 

FaceTime allows you to visually communicate using gestures, facial expression or sign language. 

Guided Access and Screen Time

People with conditions such as autism and other sensory problems can get help on focusing on specific tasks by using this feature. A teacher or parent can limit the phone to stay on the current screen or app for a specified time. Keyboard and touch access can also be limited or disabled using this feature. Such acts can disrupt learning or reading. 

Switch Control 

Switch Control is made for those with physical motor-related problems. The feature is customisable depending on how you want to use. It lets you navigate through various items on the screen and perform certain actions using hardware that is Bluetooth-enabled. You can switch platforms, synchronise with other devices or with your iCloud account using your phone. This eliminates the need to set up different switches on every single device. 

Thanks for reading.

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Accessibility Features On Android

Seeing AI By Microsoft – Free Software Showcase

Seeing AI by Microsoft combines the power of AI and the cloud to deliver an intelligent app that narrates the world around you. The app helps the visually impaired and the blind see or get around or navigate their world with better ease. 

The Seeing AI App is for the blind or low vision community that have problems functioning in a world made for people with good vision. It provides productivity and ease of tools for labeling utilities, obstacle or object recognition, and reading printed text. While there are many apps out there that can do the same things, there is no one single app that can do everything it does.

How it Works

The app uses the phones camera and computer vision to analyse what is in front of the phone including objects, text, and people. It then relays the information to the user via the computer assistant that communicates through your phone’s speakers.

It is divided into several navigational channels corresponding with technologies that would make life easier for people with a visual impairment. 

These channels are Scene, Person, Currency, Product, Documents, and Short Text (the Scene and Person channels are still in development).

Short Text – The feature uses the phone’s camera to search for printed material. Once it finds it, it uses optical recognition software to translate the printed material to machine text that is read out to the user through the phone’s speakers. It can be great if you are going through your mail, reading menus, or need to find a hotel room number.

Document – The feature uses optical recognition software to read documents. All you need to do is aim your camera phone towards the page of a document and the software will provide prompts when the corners and edges are all visible to the camera lens. Once they are all visible, it will prompt the user to hold steady and then automatically take a photo that will be sent to the cloud servers for processing. Once it has been processed, it uses voiceover to read out the document, including the formatting.

Product – This comes with a barcode scanner that makes it easy to scan the barcode on products to identify the product and details such as ingredients, directions, and any other pertinent details. Locating the barcode can be quite the hustle which is why the Seeing AI beeps when it spots it and increases the rate of the beep when you move closer to the barcode. Once it is close enough to the code, it will snap the code and using AI will identify what the product is, including the details.

Person – Seeing AI uses object recognition software to recognise people’s faces. If you have a library of photos of family and friends, the app will tell you when one of those people is near when you point the camera at them. The app guides you to center the face of the person and then tells you to snap the picture. It will then estimate their emotion such as frowning or smiling. If the person is in your image database it will also read out their name once their face is in focus.

Currency – The app uses object recognition software to identify the denomination of the currency through and then reads it out to you (unfortunately this currently only recognises US dollars).

Scenes – This is an ongoing project in beta with experimental features that you have to turn on in settings. When you take photos the AI recognises the objects, then gives a description of it such as “probably a man sitting on a couch” or “street corner with signs”.

Recognise Images in other Apps – It uses object recognition software to identify objects in apps on your phone such as WhatsApp, Twitter, and Mail.

Other features include an audible tone for corresponding to the brightness of the surrounding; description of the perceived colour and reading out loud handwritten text. 

Where to download…

The Seeing App is currently only available on the App Store where you can download it onto your iOS devices for free.

For further information on the Microsoft Seeing AI app and for video demos of each function click here.

Further information on our DSA assessment centre.

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Calm Harm Stops Self Harm

The Calm Harm app is an iOS and Android app developed by Consultant Clinical Psychologist Dr. Nihara Krause. Using principles derived from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), the app teaches impulse control, emotional regulation and tracking of underlying triggers so that users can be more equipped to overcome the urge to self-harm.

Who the App is for?

If you are a student with mental health difficulties and you sometimes feel the urge to self harm then this app might be able to help. The app is designed specifically for young adults who are looking to be free of the physical and emotional pain of self-harm. 

How Calm Harm Works?

According to DBT, the urge to self-harm is like a wave that is most powerful at the outset and diminishes as the person resists it.

The app aims to help users to ‘surf the wave’ of self-harm, through a choice of several activities. The activities are in the following categories:

1. Distract – The user can select a range of activities to distract themselves
2. Comfort – The user can select from activities that provide comfort in times of distress 
3. Express – The user gets to express themselves in several ways to relieve their feelings
4. Release – The user provides several ways of releasing tension that they can use instead of self-harm

Self-harm can be an uncontrollable urge that is driven by a wide range of reasons specific to the individual. The app recognises the individual complexity in the nature of self-harm and provides a range of activities to suit different needs. 

Since what may work at one time may not work the next time, there are many activities to try out depending on the personality of the individual. The different activities are also categorised so that it’s easy to decide which one to use depending on the intensity of emotions being felt. The app works on an incremental strengthening of the users will.

Calm Harm also comes with additional features that include a list of resources, including country-specific hotlines and websites to gain access to material related to psychological health and social support to deal with family problems, self-harm, and associated issues. Users can also get to personalise their activities, keep a personal log, and maintain a personal emergency contact list. The list may include important people to call such as adults or friend that can offer support when they need it. 

With its multiple methods to release anger, to calm and to distract combined with the many resources the app offers, it provides a powerful toolbox to deal with the wave of self-harm when it arises. 

Where To Download

The App is available for free on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.

All the best,

A2B Assessments

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