Day 9

27 May 2022

VoiceOver accessibilitySpeechIPANotation iOS

accessibilitySpeechIPANotation is sometimes handy in English where a word is spelled the same but pronounced differently depending of the context. Some examples are: live, read... Or you may want to correct how VoiceOver pronounces your app's name!

Example shows how you can specify the correct pronunciation for the text “Most read” and for the word “Live” in the context of direct broadcasting, using the IPA notation. The code sets an accessibilityAttributeLabel to the UILabel (or UIView) with the string and a dictionary containing the accessibilitySpeechIPANotation attribute key and the “Most rēd” or “laɪv” values.

Example code in the image:

let liveNewsChannelView = UIView()
let attributedLabel = NSMutableAttributedString(string: "24 hour news channel. ")

attributedLabel.append(NSAttributedString(string: "Live",attributes: [.accessibilitySpeechIPANotation: "laɪv"]))

liveNewsChannelView.accessibilityAttributedLabel = attributedLabel

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accessibilitySpeechPitch lets you emphasise something changing VoiceOver's pitch. The value goes from 0.0 to 2.0. The default is 1.0. Twitter could change pitch to read hashtags, for example, avoiding repetition but still signalling they're there.

VoiceOver accessibilitySpeechPitch iOS speechPitch

Day 142

Today I want to share something I use a lot. You can convert any article into a “podcast” by enabling Speak Screen in Accessibility Settings, switching to Safari’s Reader Mode and swiping down with two fingers from the top of the screen. I think it is a good example of how if we all knew more about how to use the assistive tech available in iOS, we would find ourselves using more of them, more often, exemplifying quite well that accessibility benefits everyone.

Accessibility Speak Screen iOS

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