Video examples

iOS Voiceover

Android Talkback

iOS

Developer notes

• A sidebar can help people navigate your app, providing quick access to top-level collections of content
• Consider using a tab bar instead of a sidebar for a phone app, as it can require a lot of horizontal space, especially in Portrait orientation
• Name, Role, State must be stated in a single announcement when focus is on any button in the menu
• Inform the screen reader user of the open/close actions on the elements that perform those actions
• Ensure the screen reader user can close the menu
• If the secondary pane of the split view is not available to the non-screen reader user, the screen reader user should be confined in the menu
• Ensure focus order is logical
• Use headings when appropriate
• If dropdowns are a part of the menu, group the label with the caret
• Images don’t usually need alt text, if their meaning is in the text label next to them

Name

• Name describes the purpose of the control
• Programmatic name matches the visible text label
• Name sometimes includes the state (opens menu), state being currently closed
  • Note: Setting a programmatic name while a visible text label exists may cause VoiceOver to duplicate the announcement of the name. If this happens, hide the visible text label from VoiceOver recognition.
• UIKit
  • You can programmatically set the visible label with setTitle().
    • The button title will overwrite the button accessibilityLabel.
  • If a visible label is not applicable in this case, set the button accessibilityLabel to the label of your choice.
    • To do this in Interface Builder, set the label using the Identity Inspector
  • To hide labels from VoiceOver programmatically, set the label’s isAccessibilityElement property to false
  • To hide labels from VoiceOver using Interface Builder, uncheck Accessibility Enabled in the Identity Inspector.
• SwiftUI
  • If no visible label, use view modifier accessibilityLabel(_:).

Role

• When using non-native controls (custom controls), roles will need to be manually coded.

• UIKit
  • Use UISplitViewController
  • Use UICollectionLayoutListConfiguration.Appearance
  • For other elements in a menu, follow guidance for Buttons or Dropdowns
• SwiftUI
  • Use a list inside a NavigationView
  • For other elements in a menu, follow guidance for Buttons or Dropdowns

Groupings

• Group visible label with button or dropdown, if applicable, to provide a programmatic name for the control

• UIKit
  1. Ensure that the child elements of the overarching view you want to group in has their isAccessibilityElement properties set to false.
  2. Set isAccessibilityElement to true for the parent view. Then, adjust accessibilityLabel and accessibilityTraits accordingly.
     • If frame does not exist due to custom button, use accessibilityFrameInContainer to set the custom control’s frame to the parent view’s container or view of your choice.
       • You can also unionize two frames with frame.union (i.e. titleLabel.frame.union(subtitleLabel.frame)).
     • Use shouldGroupAccessibilityElement for a precise order if the native order should be disrupted.
     • Use shouldGroupAccessibilityChildren to indicate whether VoiceOver must group its children views. This allows making unique vocalizations or define a particular reading order for a part of the page.
• SwiftUI
  • Use view modifier accessibilityElement(children: .combine) to merge the child accessibility element’s properties into the new accessibilityElement.

State

• Inform the screen reader of the state of opens and closes on the button that performs this action

• UIKit
  • For enabled: Set isEnabled to true.
  • For disabled: Set isEnabled to false. Announcement for disabled is “Dimmed”.
    • If necessary, you may change the accessibility trait of the button to notEnabled, but this may overwrite the current accessibility role of the button.
• SwiftUI
  • For selected, use accessibilityAddTraits(.isSelected).
  • For disabled, use view modifier disabled().

Focus

• Use the device’s default focus functionality
• Consider how focus should be managed between child elements and their parent views
• External keyboard tab order often follows the screen reader focus, but sometimes this functionality requires additional development to manage focus to interactive elements
• Initial focus on a screen should land in a logical place, such as back button, screen title, first text field, or first heading

• When a menu or modal is closed, the focus should return to the triggering element

• UIKit
  • If VoiceOver is not reaching a particular element, set the element’s isAccessibilityElement to true
    • Note: You may need to adjust the programmatic name, role, state, and/or value after doing this, as this action may overwrite previously configured accessibility.
  • Use accessibilityViewIsModal to contain the screen reader focus inside the modal.
  • To move screen reader focus to newly revealed content, use UIAccessibility.post(notification:argument:) that takes in .screenChanged and the newly revealed content as the parameter arguments.
  • To NOT move focus, but dynamically announce new content: use UIAccessibility.post(notification:argument:) that takes in .announcement and the announcement text as the parameter arguments.
  • UIAccessibilityContainer protocol: Have a table of elements that defines the reading order of the elements.
• SwiftUI
  • For general focus management that impacts both screen readers and non-screen readers, use the property wrapper @FocusState to assign an identity of a focus state.
    • Use the property wrapper @FocusState in conjunction with the view modifier focused(_:) to assign focus on a view with @FocusState as the source of truth.
    • Use the property wrapper @FocusStatein conjunction with the view modifier focused(_:equals:) to assign focus on a view, when the view is equal to a specific value.
  • If necessary, use property wrapper @AccessibilityFocusState to assign identifiers to specific views to manually shift focus from one view to another as the user interacts with the screen with VoiceOver on.

Announcement example for Google Meet

• “More options, button” (Image label, action)
• “Close menu, button” (Invisible button label, action)

Android

Developer notes

• The navigation drawer component is a slide-in menu that lets users navigate to various sections of your app
• The navigation drawer can appear as a modal, over the top of content. Ensure the screen reader user is confined in the modal
• Two finger swipe to the left anywhere on the screen closes menu
• Name, Role, State must be stated in a single announcement when focus is on any button in the menu
• Inform the screen reader user of the open/close actions on the elements that perform those actions
• Ensure focus order is logical
• Use headings when appropriate
• If dropdowns are a part of the menu, group the label with the caret
• Images don’t usually need alt text, if their meaning is in the text label next to them

Name

• Name describes the purpose of the control
• Programmatic name matches the visible text label

• Name sometimes includes the state (opens menu), state being currently closed

• Android Views
  • android:text XML attribute
  • Optional: use contentDescription for a more descriptive name, depending on type of view and for elements (icons) without a visible label
  • contentDescription overrides android:text
  • Use labelFor attribute to associate the visible label with the control
• Jetpack Compose
  • Compose uses semantics properties to pass information to accessibility services.
  • Example specification of contentDescription in compose: modifier = Modifier.semantics { contentDescription = "" }

Role

• When not using native controls (custom controls), roles will need to be manually coded.

• Android Views
  • Use DrawerLayout with two child views: a NavHostFragment to contain the main content and a NavigationView for the contents of the navigation drawer
• Jetpack Compose
  • Use ModalNavigationDrawer composable

Groupings

• Group visible label with button or dropdown, if applicable, to provide a programmatic name for the control

• Android Views
  • ViewGroup
  • Set the container object’s android:screenReaderFocusable attribute to true, and each inner object’s android:focusable attribute to false. In doing so, accessibility services can present the inner elements’ contentDescription or names, one after the other, in a single announcement.
• Jetpack Compose
  • Modifier.semantics(mergeDescendants = true) {} is equivalent to importantForAccessibility when compared to android views
  • FocusRequester.createRefs() helps to request focus to inner elements with in the group

State

• Inform the screen reader of the state of opens and closes the on the button that performs this action

• Android Views
  • Active: android:enabled=true
  • Disabled: android:enabled=false. Announcement: disabled
• Jetpack Compose
  • Active: default state is active and enabled. Use Button(enabled = true) to specify explicitly
  • Disabled: Button(enabled = false) announces as disabled
  • Alternatively can use modifier = Modifier.semantics { disabled() } to announce as disabled
  • Use modifier = Modifier.semantics { stateDescription = "" } to have a customized state announcement

Focus

• Only manage focus when needed. Primarily, let the device manage default focus
• Consider how focus should be managed between child elements and their parent views
• External keyboard tab order often follows the screen reader focus, but sometimes needs focus management to interactive elements
• Initial focus on a screen should land in a logical place (back button, screen title, first text field, first heading)

• When a menu or modal is closed, the focus should return to the triggering element.

• Android Views
  • importantForAccessibility makes the element visible to the Accessibility API
  • android:focusable
  • android=clickable
  • Implement an onClick( ) event handler for keyboard, as well as onTouch( )
  • nextFocusDown
  • nextFocusUp
  • nextFocusRight
  • nextFocusLeft
  • accessibilityTraversalBefore (or after)
  • To move screen reader focus to newly revealed content: Type_View_Focused
  • To NOT move focus, but dynamically announce new content: accessibilityLiveRegion(set to polite or assertive)
  • To hide controls: importantForAccessibility=false
  • For a ViewGroup, set screenReaderFocusable=true and each inner object’s attribute to keyboard focus (focusable=false)
• Jetpack Compose
  • Modifier.focusTarget() makes the component focusable
  • Modifier.focusOrder() needs to be used in combination with FocusRequesters to define focus order
  • Modifier.onFocusEvent(), Modifier.onFocusChanged() can be used to observe the changes to focus state
  • FocusRequester allows to request focus to individual elements with in a group of merged descendant views
  • Example: To customize the focus events
    • step 1: define the focus requester prior. val (first, second) = FocusRequester.createRefs()
    • step 2: update the modifier to set the order. modifier = Modifier.focusOrder(first) { this.down = second }
    • focus order accepts following values: up, down, left, right, previous, next, start, end
    • step 3: use second.requestFocus() to gain focus

Announcement example for Google Meet Navigation Drawer

• “Open navigation menu, button, double tap to activate” (menu button collapsed)
• “Google Meet, in list, 3 items” (Menu label, list announcement, number of items in list)
• Left swipe with two fingers anywhere on screen to dismiss menu