Day 186

What Zoom testing reveals in your UI

20 Nov 2022

I used to think of Zoom as an accessibility feature that didn't need support from developers. But actually, testing with Zoom might unveil some issues and bad practices. Watch out for buttons that change something far away on the screen.

An app for reading articles lets you tap a button for indicating that you want to see less content like that. When you do, a snackbar shows on the top of the screen indicating that and letting you Undo the action. When using Zoom, the user doesn't see the snackbar as it is appearing outside the zoomed region.

Using a snackbar is usually not a good idea. Especially if it lets you do/undo something. Because they're ephemeral, they're difficult to spot and/or reach with Zoom, VoiceOver, Switch, Keyboard... Confirming a destructive action with a dialog might be better.

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You may also find interesting...

Zoom lets the user magnify the screen if the user needs to zoom in a region to be able to see any details a bit closer. It is useful to know the gestures that let you zoom in, back out, move around the screen, adjust zoom level or show its menu.

There are details conveying important information that are shown visually with little icons, badges, progress bars, and similar cues that can be missed when they are not added as part of the accessibility label or accessibility value of a UI component.

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.


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