Day 100

Who invented VoiceOver?

26 Aug 2022

We've spoken a lot about VoiceOver in the past 100 days. But who invented VoiceOver? The answer to this question and other fascinating stories from Mike Shebanek are in these amazing episodes of 13 Letters:

• Who invented VoiceOver?

• Accessibility should be free

Drawing of a portrait of Mike Shebanek. At the top, there is the cover art for the 13 Letters podcast by Be My Eyes, and the title

> "Apple had been a worldwide leader in this. Late 70s, early 80s. The company was starting to fade, and so accessibility disappeared. Probably for about 10 years. 2004, and my manager says: hey, what are we doing? Nothing. We have nothing."

> "Alan Brightman going to John Scully, the CEO, and Steve Jobs before Steve was ousted from the company, saying, 'If you're going to build a computer for the rest of us, then you should build a computer for all of us.'"

> "Not just deliver a screen reader but change the whole idea. And that's when I thought, we need to build this in. We need to make this free. It needs to be everywhere. It needs to be there before you know you need it."

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You may also find interesting...

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.

Test manually. Familiarise yourself with different assistive technologies. I find it useful to start with VoiceOver but check out Voice Control, Full Keyboard Access, and others... Remove friction, configuring shortcuts can help. Merry Christmas!

Custom actions work as great on Switch Control as they do in VoiceOver. It makes navigation much, much, faster and you’ll be able to find all those custom actions in the Switch Control menu.


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