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The Apple iPhone for low-vision: can we do better?
by Shiri Azenkot
In the September 2009 issue of Gleams, Paul Otterness praises the new accessibility features of the iPhone. Indeed, it is commendable that Apple has introduced built-in magnification and screen-reading capabilities into a mainstream product. However, from the perspective of a low-vision iPhone user and a software developer, I believe there is still untapped potential for making the iPhone, as well as all mobile devices, easier to use.
The iPhone Zoom feature uniformly enlarges a portion of the screen. This makes it difficult to locate items and understand the layout of the original display. Let us use as an example the Google Maps Application, which allows you to view a map and get directions. Understanding the street layout of an area is particularly difficult when your field of view is restricted with Zoom. Moving the viewport across the map is time-consuming and disorienting, yet Zoom is the only way to enlarge the small text labels on the map. Consider instead an application-specific solution where the size of the labels on the map can be adjusted independently of the street layout. To save space, a street name can appear in a large font when you tap the street line on the map. You could see a larger region on the map at a time and understand the street layout more easily.
While Zoom is offered for people with low-vision, the iPhone’s VoiceOver feature is intended for users with no functional vision. VoiceOver and Zoom cannot run simultaneously, reinforcing the notion that if people are able to see text on the screen they do not need to hear it spoken. However, it may be more efficient to view certain elements on the screen and listen to others being spoken. For example, you may be able to read the subject line of an email but find it strenuous and slow to read the email body. To solve this, the email subject can appear on the screen in large print, and the email body can be read aloud. Magnification and speech should be used in tandem to give you the flexibility to choose the modality that best suits your visual ability and circumstance.
In general, one-stop magnification and screen-reading features do not allow users with low-vision to be as efficient and comfortable as they can be with application-based accessibility features. Making individual applications more accessible is especially difficult to do on the iPhone, because Apple restricts the ability of software developers to modify existing applications. By contrast, Google’s Android phones are more developer-friendly and thus have the potential to offer additional—possibly better—accessibility solutions such as the ones described above.
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Shiri Azenkot is a PhD student in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, researching accessibility technology for people with visual impairments. She has low-vision and is a patient of Dr. Andrew Iwach.