Why Everyone Should Learn How To Use VoiceOver

Originally published in Mac O’Clock, a publication on Medium on 23 April 2020.

We take our vision for granted

Our sight, one of our five senses, is integral for our daily lives. We’ve used it since we were born — for visual perception, hand-eye coordination and spatial awareness.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said in 2019: “Vision, the most dominant of our senses, plays a critical role in every facet and stage of our lives. We take vision for granted, but without vision, we struggle to learn to walk, to read, to participate in school, and to work.” in the the World Report on Vision.

The huge role our vision plays in our everyday lives is often never given a second thought. We read text messages from our loved ones and watch our favourite series on Netflix. We use them to perceive depth, appreciate art, explore photography and the list goes on.

Our precious sense of vision is always taken for granted, often overlooking the almost-magical abilities our eyes bestow upon us.

Have we ever thought about how we’d ever do all that without vision?

At least 2.2 billion people have a form of vision impairment or blindness. They must be able to use an iPhone, right? How do they send text messages with emojis, watch the latest episode of your favourite series on Netflix or take pictures for Instagram?

It was rare to see accessibility being integrated into software in the early stages of the development of operating systems.

There became a need for this — increased access for the disabled in the digital world. Fortunately, Apple has taken this matter very seriously and made it one of their core values.

What is Accessibility?

Accessibility is the quality of being able to access or to use something. In this context, software and hardware are used to adapt to how the device is used to provide full access to services for the disabled.

Along with some other big tech giants, Apple has accessibility in mind through everything they design, develop and disseminate. From making sure all hardware is fully accessible right out of the box to providing live captioning to their live keynote addresses.

Apple has taken immense care and focus on accessibility on their products. Just recently with iOS 13, Apple announced Voice Control—a new accessibility feature for the motor impaired that enables users to use iPhone or iPad only with their voice.

Other than working on features for the motor impaired, Apple also focuses on people with vision, hearing and intellectual disabilities. Each with a comprehensive set of accommodations to provide the best possible means of accessibility.

VoiceOver cursor selects a text message on an iPhone

How to use the iPhone without sight

As part of the Accessibility features on the iPhone (and other products), VoiceOver is a gesture-based screen reader that lets you enjoy using iPhone even if you don’t see the screen. It’s built right into all Apple products — iPhone, iPad, iPod and Mac. It’s been part of Apple’s products since introduced on Mac OS X Tiger (v10.4) in 2005.

VoiceOver reads everything on the screen when you roll your finger over different objects. This helps people who cannot see the screen “visualise” the screen and find buttons they are looking for. Interactions with the device seems tedious, but proficient blind users can breeze through their iPhones with ease and read emails faster than a sighted user can with a much faster voice setting.

Tapping an icon on your home screen will cause it to say something like “Mail. 10 unread emails. Double-tap to open.” And like the hint suggests, double-tapping anywhere on the screen activates the previously selected item.

VoiceOver has a plethora of other features, like the Rotor to change VoiceOver settings, Braille Screen Input to type in Braille on the touch screen, Screen Curtain to turn off the screen for privacy and compatibility with a Bluetooth braille keyboard and display.

VoiceOver is also built so that any blind user can use Apple products right out-of-the-box. In fact, if you turn on a new Mac, do not touch anything and just wait, Mac starts speaking to the user and offers a tutorial for VoiceOver.

Try it out yourself

Everyone should learn how to use VoiceOver put themselves in the shoes of people who are blind. Reading about it doesn’t give you the same satisfaction as getting your hands dirty. If you feel up for the challenge, try navigating your iPhone with VoiceOver. Experience what challenges they face on a daily basis albeit for a brief moment.

Apple Support made an awesome short YouTube video on how to use VoiceOver. It’s a quick four-minute tutorial summarising the basics.

Learn how to use VoiceOver, a gesture-based screen reader on iPhone and iPad that gives audible descriptions of what's on your screen.

And of course, if you want more information, here’s the Apple Support article.

Don’t panic, you can turn off VoiceOver at any time by asking Siri or with Accessibility Shortcut. If you’re an expert already, try closing your eyes or turning on Screen Curtain by triple tapping the screen with three fingers (if you have Zoom turned on, quadruple tap with three fingers instead). You can turn the screen back on with the same gesture.

You never know, one day, you might be in a situation where you could only hear your phone, like when your screen malfunctions. VoiceOver saved my life on multiple occasions. I could do one last iCloud backup when I broke the screen of my iPad.

Is this it?

No! Of course not. I barely scratched the surface on the topic in this post. The lack of accessible content, services and technology is still a huge problem. Some developers take no care for accessibility, mislabeling buttons, including pictures with no descriptive alternative text etc. in their apps or websites. We still have a lot to do to provide access and be inclusive of everyone.

Apple says it best: “Technology is most powerful when it empowers everyone.”

You can learn more about Apple’s take on accessibility and what they’re doing to empower everyone on the Apple Accessibility website.

Accessibility is important in everything we do and we create. I hope this article taught you a little something about accessibility and inspired you to take a look at the things to do every day! Thanks for reading!