Day 10

IPA notation so VoiceOver says paella right

28 May 2022

accessibilitySpeechIPANotation is useful for indicating how foreign words are pronounced. It really annoys me to hear the word paella constantly mispronounced 😁. You could also specify language, but this way, VoiceOver won't change its voice.

Example, with a drawing of the paella emoji, shows how you can specify the correct pronunciation for the text “paella” using the IPA notation. The code sets an accessibilityAttributeLabel to the UILabel with the string and a dictionary containing the accessibilitySpeechIPANotation attribute key and the “pɑːˈeɪə” value.

Example code in the image:

let recipeNameLabel = UILabel()
let attributedLabel = NSAttributedString(
    string: "Paella",
    attributes: [.accessibilitySpeechIPANotation: "pɑːˈeɪə"]
)

recipeNameLabel.accessibilityAttributedLabel = attributedLabel

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You may also find interesting...

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 code in the image: ```swift let liveNewsChannelView = UIView() let attributedLabel = NSMutableAttributedString(string: "24 hour news channel. ") attributedLabel.append(NSAttributedString(string: "Live",attributes: [.accessibilitySpeechIPANotation: "laɪv"])) liveNewsChannelView.accessibilityAttributedLabel = attributedLabel ```

An interesting speech attribute for attributed accessibility labels is accessibilitySpeechIPANotation that lets you specify how VoiceOver should pronounce a label with the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) notation. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/foundation/nsattributedstring/key/accessibilityspeechipanotation

There is an accessibility trait for defining something that represents a custom keyboard's key: .keyboardKey. It allows VoiceOver users to change the typing mode to Direct touch typing. The calculator app or an access pin pad, are some examples.


Content © Daniel Devesa Derksen-Staats on Accessibility up to 11! is licensed under CC BY 4.0. License details