Using iPhone VoiceOver

Related documents

This document is a result from a design walk through with Everett, a voice over user.
If you are developing for the iPhone please have a look at some notes on accessibility recommendations

Purpose of this document

During a design walk through with a vision impaired user we started to use the iPhone 3G S with VoiceOver activated. To be able to use the phone properly it is important to have some instruction. This is what this page is all about. If you find an error please correct it and if you have an additional command please add it

General information

VoiceOver places the focus on the first object on the screen in the actual application order.
Unlike Jaws, which creates a virtual text buffer, VoiceOver works directly with the DOM.

Under Snow Leopard the touch pad will support the same touch commands like the iPhone itself (according to Everett - Armin will test this next week).

Commands

Going through the Object model

  • One finger swipe left to go backward in the DOM
  • One finger swipe right to go forward in the DOM
  • One finger swipe down to go forward by selection (see Roter command)
  • One finger swipe up to go backward by selection (see Roter command)

Controlling reading out of a page

  • two finger swipe up reads whole page from top
  • two finger tab will stop reading on the object
  • two finger swipe down reads from focused object (if stopped previously it will continue reading from that position)

Roter command

Rotate two fingers on the iPhone screen to "turn" the dial to choose between options. Apple

Using the two finger dial will give options like skip by word, read headings, read links, or read form fields. After selecting an option swiping up and down with one finger will then navigate through the selected items, e.g. headings.

Scrolling a screen

  • three finger swipe up to scroll up
  • three finger swipe down to scroll down