Accessibility on Your Smartphone

On the first day of the Beginner Smartphone and Tablet class, we discuss accessibility issues on our mobile devices. These devices rely on mostly the use of our eyes and hands.  If you have issues with either one of these, you will need to find ways to compensate. Accessibility functionality has come a long way since these devices were invented over 10 years.  

First, let’s talk about some of the simple things you can do to make using these devices easier particularly on our eyes.  All devices have a setting allowing you to increase the text size as well as zoom functionality.  To launch zoom, there is a special way to touch the screen, for example on some devices it is a triple tap. Devices also have different color options like dark mode and inverted colors. Pro tip: the camera can double as a magnifier by using the camera zoom.  

For those with true blindness, TalkBack on Android and VoiceOver on Apple are screen readers.  I find the learning curve to be fairly steep, so certainly talk with a professional like those at Oregon Commission for the Blind. 

Our hands are also an issue.  Tremors, numb digits, cold hands, neuropathy, calluses, and arthritis can impact a person’s use of their device.  Keyboards come equipped with a microphone to allow dication.  And all devices have an assistant app, it is Siri on the Apples and OK Google on the Androids.  This can allow a user to tell their device commands rather than taping on the screen. Voice Control is a new feature on the Apple that is like Siri on steroids.  It labels items on the screen allowing a user to identify items without touching the screen. 

There are some fancy hearing aids out there that will connect with your phone as well as hearing aid settings.  I find speaker mode on phone calls is helpful to those with older model hearing aids that don’t connect with the phone.  There are also caption and sound amplifier features.  

Advertisements do not highlight these features and it is hard to see them being used in real life.  However, turning on some of these features may mean the difference between being frustrated and not using the device versus communicating more and enhancing a person’s life.