RE: Understanding How Focus Behavior Works For VoiceOver On IOS and TalkBack On Android

Hi Jonathan,
Do you have thoughts on the following problem?  

When using VoiceOver on iOS, I find that the VO cursor often loses focus when in a list of items that may individually be active.  For example, in almost every newspaper or magazine app that I use, after I open an article to read and then return to the table of contents via a Back button, the VO cursor loses its place in the list and instead leaves me at the top of the list again.  So, when I am selecting articles to read, I have to keep swiping through the titles of articles I have already encountered before I swipe to new titles.  I find this to be a significant drain on efficiency.

How can iOS developers code so that the VO cursor maintains the focus that a user would expect?  Could a change in the accessibility API solve this problem so that developers do not have to deliberately address it?

Jamal

Jamal Mazrui
Director, Accessibility and Innovation Initiative 
Federal Communications Commission
202.418.0069

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Avila [mailto:jon.avila@ssbbartgroup.com] 
Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2015 2:43 PM
To: Jim; w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: RE: Understanding How Focus Behavior Works For VoiceOver On IOS and TalkBack On Android

Jim, it depends on whether you are talking about native apps or web apps.  For web apps you can use the standard practices for web accessibility.  Regarding native apps, when screen readers are activated both platforms change how interactions work and place additional items into the swipe/focus order.  Essentially under iOS if an element has isAccessibilityElement set to YES it is focusable with swiping.  On android set the element to be focusable (e.g. android:focusable) to make it swipable or accessible with the keyboard.

Jonathan

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Jonathan Avila
Chief Accessibility Officer
SSB BART Group 
jon.avila@ssbbartgroup.com

703-637-8957 (o) 
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-----Original Message-----
From: Jim [mailto:jhomme1028@gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, April 09, 2015 2:30 PM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Understanding How Focus Behavior Works For VoiceOver On IOS and TalkBack On Android

Hi,
I'm trying to advise some developers how to sensibly help mobile screen readers land in user-friendly places when screens come up.
Before I have specific questions, I was attempting to wade through the draft accessibility API document, and because I am only a dangerous coder, and like things in non-technical language, at least to start with, can anyone point me to somewhere that I can read to understand this so that I can go from a high level and then drill down to technical things?

Thanks.

JJim

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Received on Friday, 10 April 2015 17:54:03 UTC