Hi All, I thought some of you might be interested in this article.
From: Rita Howells Explanation of the structure and architecture with in Apple iOS software and with in apps: Rita’s iDevice Advice for March 8, 2021 The below information comes from the San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind. Contact information is at the bottom. Further down, is some visual description of the icons on an Apple iOS Device. Explanation of the structure and architecture in Apple iOS software and with in apps: App architecture: The top of the screen • Back button. The back button typically lives at or near the top-left corner of your screen. When pressed, it will take you back to the previous screen, category or menu. Visually, it is represented by a left-arrow. With Voiceover, you may hear something like, “Settings, back button.” Voiceover is reporting the back button as well as the previous category you will return to if this button is pressed. • Edit button. Edit buttons also live near the top-left corner of your screen in native iOS apps. The edit button lets you make changes to the information on the current screen. For example, finding your contact card, and then finding the Edit button will let you edit your own contact information. • Done button. When you are finished making changes to information, you can find the Done button near the top-left corner of your screen. This acts as a confirmation button to save the changes you’ve made. This may also appear as a Save button. • Cancel button. This button occurs at the top-left corner in many native iOS apps. It will cancel any changes you’ve made and close out the screen. The bottom of the screen Tab bars A tab bar is a set of two to five tabs that let you move to different sections of an app. It lies along the bottom of your screen from left to right. Visually, tabs are often translucent, and may or may not have a background tint to them. Let’s use the phone app as an example of what Voiceover may report when encountering a tab bar. • Tab bar announcement. As of iOS 14, Voiceover will announce that you have encountered a tab bar when focus moves to the bottom of the screen. • Tab name. Voiceover will announce the name of the tab you’ve encountered. For example, “Keypad, tab.” • Tab position. Voiceover will announce the position of the focused tab in relation to how many tabs there are. For example, “Keypad, tab, 4 of 5.” • Selection. When you double-tap a tab, its content will appear on the screen. Along with this, you will hear that your chosen tab is selected. For example, “Selected, keypad tab, 4 of 5.” Tool bars Just like a tab bar, a tool bar is a set of buttons that lies along the bottom of your screen from left to right. Tab bars let you move between sections of an app, whereas tool bars give you a list of actions to perform. An easy tool bar to explore appears in your Safari app, which serves as your internet browser. Let’s talk about what you will hear. • Tool bar announcement. As of iOS 14, Voiceover will announce that you have encountered a tool bar when focus moves to the bottom of the screen. • Button name. Tool bars contain buttons that can be pressed to perform actions. In Safari’s tool bar, you may hear, “Share, button.” Double-tapping this will bring up an iOS share sheet. The middle of the screen This is where the main content of your app will appear. Let’s talk about what you’ll find. • Items. The items in your app will be different depending on which app you’re working in. In the Voicemail tab of your Phone app, your items are voicemails. In your inbox of your Mail app, your items are emails. • Categories. These are sets of items or selectable options. Your Settings app contains a wealth of categories represented by buttons. • Actions. These are actions related to working with the individual item you’ve found. These actions can vary depending on which app you’re in. Voiceover will report to you that actions are available. This means you can swipe up or down to move through your list of actions, and double-tap to perform an action. Visually, lists of actions may appear after you perform a long-press on an item, or they may appear as a button with three dots that needs to be pressed. Scrolling through content There are a few ways to scroll through pages of content in an app. • Headings. Headings separate your app into sections for easier navigation. You can use the headings item in your rotor to move through these. Use your rotate gesture until you hear, “Headings.” Swipe up to move to the previous heading, and swipe down to move to the next heading. • Scroll gestures. Voiceover lets you scroll with three-finger swipe gestures. Swipe up with three fingers to scroll down, and swipe down with three fingers to scroll up. While scrolling, Voiceover will report your position and progress. You will hear things like, “Rows 1 through 10 of 50. Rows 10 through 20 of 50,” etc. • Indexes. An index is an alphabetically organized list of items. The index in your contacts list of your phone can be used to navigate quickly through your address book. When you encounter this element with Voiceover, you will hear, “Section index, adjustable.” Swipe up or down to move through the list of letters of the alphabet, and swipe right to hear items corresponding to that letter. • Vertical scroll bar. The vertical scroll bar appears and extends vertically down the right edge of your screen. It gives you a quicker way to scroll through what may be pages and pages of items. When encountering this with Voiceover, you may hear, “Vertical scroll bar, five pages, 10 percent, adjustable.” Swipe up or down with one finger to adjust the percentage you hear. If you need to find something near the end, try swiping down until you hear, “90%,” and then explore the middle of your screen for the item you want. App inconsistencies Sometimes, apps can behave unexpectedly or inconsistently. Here are some examples of what you may find. • Unclear tab bars. Tab bars are usually good at telling you what you will find when you select one. Some, may have tabs that are labeled in a vague or confusing way. • Poorly structured tab bars. The last tab in a tab bar usually marks the end of the content on your screen, letting you swipe no further. Some tab bars, however, will let you swipe out of them and into the contents of your screen. This can be disorienting. • Rotor focus changes. Sometimes you will try to swipe through rotor actions, only to hear characters instead! Refocus your list of actions by performing your rotate gesture to the left. • Unlabeled buttons. Well-developed, accessible apps will have buttons that tell you what will happen when you press them. Some apps, however, are filled with buttons that will only say, “Button,” when encountered with Voiceover. You can remedy this by using the Label Element feature of Voiceover. Here’s how to do this. o Touch the unlabeled item to bring it into Voiceover focus. o Perform a two-finger double-tap, and hold, keeping your fingers pressed to the screen after the second tap. You will hear three beeps, and Voiceover will say, “Alert, label element.” o You now have a text field on the screen. Type or dictate the label you are assigning. For example, “Back,” for a back button. o Find and double-tap the save button to save your label. You now have a back button instead of a mystery button! App crashes Sometimes, apps will crash and become unusable. Here are a couple of solutions you can try. • Reactivate Voiceover. If Voiceover has been rendered unresponsive, summon Siri and say, “Turn Voiceover on.” • Exit and reenter the app. Move back to the home screen via the home gesture or home button, then double-tap the app again. • Close and reopen the app. Activate the app switcher, and close the unruly app with a three-finger swipe up. Then, move back to the home screen and open the app again. • Contact Apple Accessibility. If you have feedback about a particularly buggy or inaccessible app, you can contact their accessibility support hotline by calling 1-877-204-3930. Tech Together is a chance to share your knowledge and experience, as well as learn from other blind technology users. LightHouse access technology staff participate in these informal knowledge shares along with LightHouse students and friends. These meetings take place on Tuesdays from 2:00 to 3:30 PM Pacific Time unless otherwise specified. Topics will be announced as they evolve out of the needs of our community, and interest from participants. If you have any questions please send them to: [email protected] or leave a message at 1-415-694-7618. ==== Visual description of the icons on an Apple iOS Device Apple’s iOS software is an extremely visual environment, with icons that VoiceOver has been programmed to describe. An icon is a picture or symbol on the screen, used to represent an application, action, or a status message. This article will attempt to describe what a sighted person sees when looking at his/her iOS and iPad OS device. Having a basic understanding of these visual concepts can help non sighted users explain and teach iOS to those who can see, as well as providing an easier means by which Voiceover users and sighted users can relate to each other with regard to the iOS interface. When your Apple device is asleep, you can wake it up in one of several ways as described in the user guides, such as pressing the Home or Sleep/Wake button, or tapping/lifting your device. You are then immediately presented with the Lock Screen. This screen displays a padlock icon in the center of the screen, with the padlock either open or closed, depending on the current lock state of your device. Directly below that are the current time and date, one above the other. This Lock Screen also displays any notifications you may have received while your device was asleep. Select models also display a flash light icon in the bottom left, and a Camera icon in the bottom right. By default, devices with Face ID hide notification preview text until the device is unlocked. >From here, you can place your finger on the Home Button (devices with Touch ID), or glance at your device (Face ID devices) to unlock your iPhone or iPad. if necessary, you can slide up with one finger, using the bar at the very bottom center of the screen, to go Home. This places you on the Home Screen. The Home Screen is divided into four distinct elements. These include: a.. App Icons b.. Page Selector c.. Dock d.. Status Bar Giving special locations on the screen for the fixed elements can help sighted people find them. For example, the Status Bar is at the top of the screen and the Dock is the bar with app icons across the bottom of the screen. It displays the same app icons, no matter which Home Screen page you are on. The Page Selector is just above the Dock, and the App Icon area, located between the Status Bar and the Page Selector, is a grid of icons, representing all the apps installed on your device. The Status Bar (Top left and right of screen; not a physical bar): Many different icons can show up on the Status Bar, depending on what services you have, etc. For example, an airplane icon will replace the WiFi icon if your device is in airplane mode. LTE, 3G, 4G, 5GE, or others may show up depending on your current cellular service. There are indicators for personal hotspot, a call indicator when a call is in progress, location services icon, etc. Normally on the top left side of the Status Bar, the time is in numbers, like a Digital readout. Further to the right, the Cellular signal strength is represented by vertical bars. The stronger the signal, the more bars are represented (a maximum of 4 bars can show up). To the right of that is the Wi-Fi indicator which is two downward curved lines pointing with a dot under the two curved lines (some people call this graphic for WI-FI a Rainbow). The stronger the Wi-Fi signal, the more parts of this graphic appear filled in. At the far right is the Battery indicator which is like a double A battery lying on its side and the center is filled with the level of charge which changes as the charge is used up or replenished. Note that the Status Bar also appears at the top of the Lock Screen. App Icon Area: The majority of the Home Screen is comprised of the app icon area. This is a grid of apps, which is laid out with usually six rows (vertically) of apps with four apps (horizontally) in each row. Apps can be rearranged on the Home Screen, so that they appear in the order you prefer. You can even make folders which can store numerous apps. As new apps are installed, they most commonly appear last on the Home Screen. When you set up a new device, all Apple apps appear on the Home Screen first, followed by any third-party apps you may choose to install. Additional Home Screen pages are automatically created as needed, so that as new apps are installed, and the current Home Screen page is filled up, more pages will automatically appear. You can quickly swipe left and right between Home Screen pages (Voiceover users must swipe with three fingers), or you can use the Page Selector, to be discussed shortly. App icons on the Home Screen appear as squares with rounded corners. Every app icon is the same size - about the size of a thumbnail. Each app has a background color, an actual picture symbolizing the app, and the text name of the app which appears just below the icon itself. Page Selector: The Page Selector is a series of gray dots, just above the Dock. If you have six pages of apps, then there will be six dots in a row (side by side) to show how many pages there are. VoiceOver will say "Page 1 of 6". So if you are on Page 1, that page is represented by a white dot. The Dock: The Doc is represented as a gray, round-cornered rectangle across the bottom of the Home Screen. On an iPhone, the Doc can support four app icons. These four icons remain the same, no matter what Home Screen page the Slider takes you to. You can change which apps appear on the Doc. The current default apps on the Doc for iPhone devices are Phone, Safari, Messages, and Music. You can move the apps on the Doc around just like other apps. The Phone app is green with a white handset of an old telephone; the Messages icon is green with a solid white speaking bubble; the Safari app is white with a compass graphic; and the Music App is a white app with a two musical eighth note graphic. App Name App Color APP Description Apple Store White Blue shopping bag with white apple that has a bite taken out Apps Store Blue White capital letter A Books Orange White open book Calculator White Black calculator image Calendar White Current day of week (in red), date in numbers (in black) Camera Gray Black old fashioned Polaroid camera Clips White Blue circle with white movie camera Clock Black White face of click with current time in black analog Compass Black White compass image with cardinal directions: W, E, N, S Contacts White Circle with person image and colored tabs like an address book FaceTime Green White movie camera Files White Blue file folder Files White Blue file folder Find My Gray Green and blue circular radar Garage Band Orange White guitar image Health White Red heart symbol Home White Orange house iMovie Purple White 5 pointed with purple movie camera ITunes Store Dark pink White 5 Point Star iTunes U Orange White mortar board Keynote Blue White podium Mail Blue White envelope Maps Multicolored Interstate graphic, white directional arrowhead, in blue circle Measure Black White ruler markings with yellow horizontal dotted line Messages Green Solid white speaking bubble (like in cartoons) Music White 2 multi-colored eighth notes tied with bar News White Red striped capital letter N Notes Yellow heading White below Gray lines across Numbers Green 4 white vertical bars Pages Orange Whites slanted pencil with straight horizontal line Phone Green White old fashioned handset phone Photos White Pinwheel of primary colors Podcasts Purple Two white circles with a microphone symbol in middle Reminders White Three colored bullet points each with a gray horizontal line after them Safari White Blue compass with die final needle in white and red Settings Gray Dark gray gear wheel Shortcuts Black Red and blue squares on top of each with space in between Stocks Black White horizontal graphic line with blue vertical line with blue dot TV Black White apple with word TV in white Voice Memos Black Red and white vertical sound wave lines Wallet Black Multi-colored rectangle with rows representing credit card slots Watch Black White watch - side view Weather Blue White cloud with partial sunshine behind it Notification Center: white header style letters “Notification Center”. In the Settings app, the Notification icon is red and within it is a white rounded corner square outline with a white ball at the right top corner. However, in the Notification Center, each notification will be a gray rectangle with rounded corners, and the icon within at the top left of the rectangle will look like whatever app is sending the notification. Control Center: You can add other app icons to this area, so you may run across someone’s phone that is setup a little differently. By default, there are two black round- cornered squares side by side, near the top, with icons in them. The one on the left has four icons, two on top and two below. In the top left is the Airplane mode icon. It is a gray circle with a white small airplane. In the top right is the Cellular data icon. It is a green circle with a graphic that resembles a small radio tower. In the bottom left of the square is the WiFi icon. In the bottom right is the Bluetooth icon. It is based on the shape of the Viking Rune letters, H&B, which stands for Harald Bluetooth, a Viking King. It resembles somewhat a small butterfly paperclip lying on its side or a small bow on its side. The square on the right is the Music App and has a white Play button arrow in the middle and gray left rewind and gray right fast forward buttons on the right. In that top right corner of that app is the airplay icon which looks like a target of white circles with a gray tiny triangle at the bottom and within the circles. Below the large square on the left are two small icons. On the left is the Screen Orientation Lock. It is black with a white small padlock symbol and a white partial arrow circling around it. To the right of that is the Do Not Disturb icon. It is white with a gray quarter moon symbol. Below that is a small black round-cornered rectangle, Screen Mirroring app. It has two small white outlined rectangles overlapping each other and the words, Screen Mirroring. To the right of those apps are two long black narrow vertical slider apps. The one on the left controls the screen brightness. The slider is white and has a small gray sun symbol on it. To the right of that is the black volume control. The slider is white and has a small speaker symbol on it. Below that, from left to right on most iPhones, are four apps. All are black with white graphics representing each app: but the flashlight app, a timer app (has a partial circle outline with a needle point to the 10 o'clock position), a calculator app (image resembles a calculator), and a camera app (image looks like a camera). Below that at the bottom, left to right are three additional apps. All are black with white graphics representing each app: The Home app (looks like a house nested within a house), low power mode icon (looks like a AA battery on its side), and the QR Code app (looks like four corner brackets with 4 small squares inside). Other Common Icons Within iOS Apps: Many Apple apps, and even a variety of third-party apps, conform to standard implementations of common icons, such as Back, Share, and Cancel, just to name a few. Learning what these icons look like can help you to recognize them, thus enhancing the ability to learn and use new apps. Back button: a left pointing arrow. Share option: a rectangle with an up-pointing arrow, or three dots. Attachments: a paper clip More option: a circle with 3 dots in the middle Edit: the word Edit in a square Add: the plus sign Cancel: the word Cancel Search: gray long round cornered rectangle with gray outline of magnifying glass, the gray word Search, and a gray microphone -- The following information is important for all members of the V iPhone list. If you have any questions or concerns about the running of this list, or if you feel that a member's post is inappropriate, please contact the owners or moderators directly rather than posting on the list itself. Your V iPhone list moderator is Mark Taylor. Mark can be reached at: [email protected]. Your list owner is Cara Quinn - you can reach Cara at [email protected] The archives for this list can be searched at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "VIPhone" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/viphone/00aa01d71522%2495558480%242001a8c0%40IndioDell7.
