Day 40
27 Jun 2022
Imagine playing a piano with VoiceOver. You'd have to find the key you want to play and then double tap. It would be a very difficult experience. With the .allowsDirectInteraction accessibility trait, VoiceOver passes through touch gestures.
Use carefully! And only when it really makes sense to be able to handle controls directly with touch. Other examples could be a drawing app or some games.
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If you need multiple links embedded in some text (like the classic T&Cs and Privacy policy), the easiest is to use a UITextView & Attributed Strings, and it will work beautifully with VoiceOver. You'll be even able to navigate through links. In the example, VoiceOver would say: “I agree with the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Conditions, link”. Swipe down, should announce: “Privacy Policy, link” and you can double tap to open it. Swiping down one more time announces: “Terms and Conditions, link”. Example code in the image: ```swift let textView = UITextView() let string = "I agree with the Privacy Policy and the Terms and Conditions" let attributedString = NSMutableAttributedString(string: string) attributedString.addAttribute(.link, value: "https://www.yourdomain.com/pp", range: NSRange(location: 17, length: 14)) attributedString.addAttribute(.link, value: "https://www.yourdomain.com/tac", range: NSRange(location: 40, length: 20)) textView.attributedText = attributedString extension ViewController: UITextViewDelegate { func textView(_ textView: UITextView, shouldInteractWith URL: URL, in characterRange: NSRange, interaction: UITextItemInteraction) -> Bool { UIApplication.shared.open(URL) return true } } ```
This is my favorite way of testing VoiceOver. Pick a flow in your app. Turn VoiceOver on. Triple tap with three fingers on the screen to enable Screen Curtain. The screen goes off but you can still navigate your device with VoiceOver.
Once you learn some basic gestures with VoiceOver, it is very important to master he Rotor. It is very useful to also know some more power user gestures like the Magic Tap or the Escape gesture.
Content © Daniel Devesa Derksen-Staats on Accessibility up to 11! is licensed under CC BY 4.0. License details
