Accessibility in SpeakerClock 1.3.1 | Cocoanetics

Now you can totally function SpeakerClock with no or low imaginative and prescient. We gave SpeakerClock the complete Accessibility therapy. On this article I describe a number of the issues I realized including accessibility options to SpeakerClock, now that it’s totally written in SwiftUI.

SpeakerClock’s UI is split into 3 sections, the presets on the high, the LED timer as huge as doable within the middle and the section “visitors mild” on the backside.

The principle interplay gesture is to horizontally swipe over the LED digits to alter the timer. This sort of gesture shouldn’t be doable when VoiceOver is energetic as a result of there you may pan over the display to rapidly get to the recent spots of interactive parts.

I solved this by having individually adjustable sub-elements for the minutes and seconds whereas the timer shouldn’t be operating. This manner you may swipe vertically to regulate the minutes and seconds individually.

There are three varieties of ordinary gestures for Voice-Over which I made full use of:

1. double-tap with single finger to pick a component
2. double-tap with two fingers to carry out a “magic faucet”
3. draw a Z with two fingers to “escape”

I used #1 for the single-tap perform of the preset and talking section buttons. #2 substitutes for the lengthy press. The rationale is that it’s a must to consciously faucet with two fingers as an alternative of 1 to change the presets, as to stop you from by accident altering them.

Within the common movement of issues, VoiceOver mainly feedback on the targeted component and after a brief pause additionally reads out the accessibility trace that tells the person what interactions are doable. I additionally used VoiceOver’s announcement notifications to present audio suggestions on some interactions.

The cherry on high is that sure timer values get purple out aloud. Within the yellow and inexperienced phases you get a voice immediate each minute. The section transitions get introduced as effectively. Within the purple section there may be an announcement very 15 seconds, with the ultimate 10 seconds being accompanied by beeps.

That felt like an affordable quantity of voice suggestions for starters. I’d add some configuration choices at a later level.

On this video I’m demonstrating all that we mentioned.

Conclusion

I might say my implementation is 95% good. There are some edge instances nonetheless – which I can’t do a lot about – the place VoiceOver will insist of talking one thing that it wouldn’t have to. Sadly there isn’t any solution to inform Accessibility to “shut it” for sure occasions when there’s something extra necessary occurring.

It price me a number of experimenting and the higher a part of a day to get to this stage. I’m anxious to listen to from precise customers of SpeakerClock, specifically those that are visually impaired and may need use for a timer. And a few common customers additionally requested about acoustic suggestions. What kind of configuration choices associated to sounds may make sense?

Additionally printed on Medium.

Tagged as: SpeakerClock

Classes: Updates