Day 73

30 Jul 2022

accessibilityElement accessibilityElements accessibilityElementsHidden iOS

What is the difference between isAccessibilityElement and accessibilityElementsHidden? The first one makes the view not accessible, but its subviews can still be accessible. The second one hides the view and all its subviews from assistive tech.

There is a view containing 4 subviews. Three examples. In the three of them, all the subviews (that we'll refer to as 1, 2, 3 and 4) have the isAccessibilityElement property set to true. In the first example, the superview (that we'll refer to as A) also has the isAccessibilityElement property to true. That means that A is accessible, but 1, 2, 3 and 4 aren't. In the second example A has the isAccessibilityElement property set to false. That means that A isn't accessible, but 1, 2, 3 and 4 are accessible. In the third example, A has isAccessibilityElement to false and accessibilityElementsHidden to true. That means that A, 1, 2, 3 and 4 will not be accessible.

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Day 72

If you need for a view (and all its subviews) not to be focusable by assistive tech like VoiceOver, you can set its accessibilityElementsHidden property to true. This isn't needed very often, but it can be useful for certain custom experiences.

Day 93

Sometimes you can create your own accessibility elements from scratch to group elements too. Perhaps because they're not contained in the same superview. You can combine these elements' frames and provide a suitable accessibility label.

accessibilityElement accessibilityElements accessibilityLabel iOS

Day 31

Hacks are accessibility’s worst enemy. An example. There is a ‘trick’ floating on the internet: if you want a button with an icon to the right of the text, set the semantic content attribute to force right to left. Great way to create focus traps.

Accessibility a11y

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