New Smartphone Accessibility Technology for People with Disabilities
Posted by Matt Hagg on Fri, Dec 02, 2011 @ 09:23 AM
Smartphones, such as Android-powered devices, iPhones, and Blackberry’s, have become ubiquitous over the past few years. These phones, which typically embrace large touch screens over physical buttons and keyboards, are now replacing traditional cell phones, having accounted for 1/3 of all phones sold this summer. But what about people with disabilities, whether visual, auditory, or others? Can a person with a visual disability use an iPhone, despite the lack of a physical keyboard? Or how about a user with limited dexterity who cannot easily move their fingers around a touch screen, especially when completing an action like zooming in and out on a webpage typically requires the use of more than one finger? The answer is a resounding yes, they can!
The latest generations of smartphones, such as the new Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich” devices, Apple’s iPhone series, and BlackBerry's all come with accessibility features built in. For example, iPhones let you turn the screen off entirely and navigate by touching the screen and receiving voice feedback, or navigating entirely by using voice control. Android 4.0 has a similar feature that lets users slide their fingers across the screen while providing voice feedback. A wide range of accessibility features for BlackBerry phones are also available, including everything from customizable notification vibrations to support for TTY devices.
Other options like magnification and different contrast settings are readily available for smartphones. For users with limited dexterity, Apple’s AssistiveTouch software lets you replace gestures (pinching with two fingers to zoom in, etc.), shaking the phone to undo typing, and other physical buttons (volume up and down, power off, etc), with a finger or stylus tap on the screen. Third party applications (“app”) are also readily available to solve problems for users with various disabilities. One example is an app that scans barcodes on products and reads the product name back to the user.
Software developers are just getting started on creating new and innovative ways for users with disabilities to use their smartphones. As these devices become even more popular, it will be interesting to see how accessible smartphones continue to evolve over the coming years.