Day 226

Let users add alt text when sharing

1 Jan 2023

If your app lets the user share images, consider implementing the possibility for them to add an alt text for the image, so it can be used as an accessibility label when consumed by other users. Twitter or Slack have nice flows for doing this.

The Twitter app is open. It shows how when adding an image in the tweet composing screen, there is a button to alt text that opens another screen that lets you write a description of up to 1000 characters. Then, if a tweet has an image with alt text, it shows an ALT badge in the bottom left corner that can be selected to open a bottom sheet with the image's alt text.

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Day 197

Unlabelled elements: the issue I see most often

One of the accessibility issues I see more often in iOS apps, believe it or not, is unlabelled elements. This happens especially for buttons with an icon but no title. In those cases, you need to configure an accessibility label manually.

Day 56

Override labels for NSTextAttachment icons

It is possible to embed icons within text using NSTextAttachment and NSAttributedString. If you do, please remember to override the accessibility label, otherwise VoiceOver will announce it as "Attachment.png File". Example code in the image: ```swift let magnifyingGlassIcon = UIImage(systemName: "magnifyingglass")! let searchButton = UIButton() let searchTutorialLabel = UILabel() searchButton.accessibilityLabel = "search" let textAttachment = NSTextAttachment(image: magnifyingGlassIcon) let string = "Select the button to find elements in the list" let attributedString = NSMutableAttributedString(string: string) let attributedStringIcon = NSAttributedString(attachment: textAttachment) let iconPlaceholderRange = attributedString.string.range(of: "")! let iconRange = NSRange(iconPlaceholderRange, in: attributedString.string) attributedString.replaceCharacters(in: iconRange, with: attributedStringIcon) searchTutorialLabel.attributedText = attributedString searchTutorialLabel.accessibilityLabel = string.replacingCharacters(in: iconPlaceholderRange, with: searchButton.accessibilityLabel!) ```

Day 107

Fix combined SwiftUI accessibility labels

Grouping elements with .accessibility(children: .combine) doesn't always generate the best accessibility label. Comma-separating labels might sometimes not be ideal. But you can improve it by tweaking the labels/grouping of its children first.

accessibilityLabel iOS

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