Using iPad to support learners with VI

Using the Apple iPad to support learners with a visual impairment.
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The first accessibility setting that we're going to look at is the "Speak Selection".

In order to enable that, we need to go to the "Settings".

And if we can look here, the "Settings" is kind of gray with a few little cogs in it.

So, "Settings", and then we need to look for "General".

Just down here. There we go.

Now, as I said, we're looking for the accessibility settings, so we scroll up here,

We've got "Accessibility", just here.

Now we'll be going forwards and backwards to that selection

throughout the course of this session, so don't worry if you find it difficult to find it.

You'll get to know where it is.

Now, looking at "Speak Selection", so we need to turn that on.

And now that menu's popped up, you'll see the various different options here.

This option is quite interesting, so you can have different dialects,

for the voice that is being used.

So we could have Canadian French, for example.

There's options for Mexican English, Irish English.

But today we're just going to look for British English.

And we're going to go back to our "Speak Selection" area.

Now, we can change the rate of speaking, so we can make it very, very fast...

iPad: "Speak Selection reads selected content."

Or, we can make it a little bit more manageable...

iPad: "Speak Selection reads selected content."

and a little bit slower.

Here we have an option to highlight the words,

and particularly if we are looking at users who may need support with their literacy,

this can be a very important option.

So we're going to click on the option now and make sure that's selected,

so we don't want it off, we want that on.

So just to recap, we've enabled "Speech Selection",

and we've highlighted the words.

Now. We just go back now, to any of the apps really,

but we're going to go into Safari,

and in order to get the iPad to speak,

we just have to highlight a piece of text.

So if we just hold our finger over a piece of text,

now we can click "Speak". And...

iPad: "Committed."

Now, obviously we're going to want it to speak more than just the occasional word,

so in order to select more text, we just hold our finger down,

and the little blue circles there,

we just drag them over the whole of the work,

of the writing that we want it to speak. OK.

iPad: "We are committed to enabling schools to support children and young people

with sensory impairments to achieve their potential."

And that's "Speak Selection."

[silence]

Now we're going to look at using Safari, the iPad's web browser,

to simplify the text that's available on the Internet.

So, we're going to open Safari,

and I've got a web page from the ONIB open here,

And what I'm going to do is I'm just going to go to a page

that has an individual news article,

and then get the iPad to simplify what's on the screen.

So, for example, if I go to "Audio" here,

and looking up at the top of the screen here,

you'll see what's just popped up is the word "Reader" in a little gray box.

I'm going to just do that again, so that you get to see that again,

so it's not there at the moment,

but if I go to an actual article within the web page,

I see that "Reader" has popped up just at the top of the screen.

Now, if I actually click on that button there,

what I get is a beautifully simplified version of the news article.

So what the iPad has done, is it's recognized

that there's actually a news article within that web page,

and it's just extracted the text, and given it a nice, simple, easy-to-read format.

Now up here, we can change the text size, so if I just click on those "A"'s,

and then the big "A", means that I can make that text nice and big for those with lower vision.

Now, what this also works with is if I highlight some text there,

and then move across to highlight the paragraph,

I can then speak -

Safari: "Audio books, newspapers, and magazines are available to listen to on CD,

cassette tape, and in digital formats like MP3."

So the speech selection that we looked at before

also works with the screen reader there.

The speech selection, of course, also works on the web site,

just as it did previously,

but it's quite nice if you've just got the simple text, as well.

Just another thing that you're able to do.

[silence]

Now the next accessibility setting that we're going to look at is the zoom function.

And before we can use it, we have to enable it in the "Settings".

We're just going to go to "Settings" there, and again it's in "General", and "Accessibility".

Just scroll there till we get "Accessibility".

Then you'll see that "Zoom" is the second option there in the list,

and [indistinct] it's off at the moment,

so we just select that, and then we can switch on by just toggling this button here, off and on.

Now just before we do that, I just want to point out this little, this little instructions here.

It says "Zoom magnifies the entire screen."

Double-tap three fingers to zoom, so we just... let's just...

and drag with three fingers to move around the screen,

so just this action here, which we'll use in a moment.

And to change the zoom, that's to change the magnification, we double-tap,

and then we drag up, and we drag down to zoom in or to zoom out.

So, we're just going to practice that now,

so just pop the zoom on there, you can see already it's zoomed in.

Now we can change the magnification as I said before, double-tap and then go up,

and you'll see there we've zoomed in,

and double-tap, and go down, and you'll see we've zoomed out.

And as it says, just in those instructions there, we can move around the screen with that.

Three fingers, use any three fingers, and here we go.

We can move to different parts of the screen.

We just press the "Home" button there, just a single click,

we'll see that the "Home" button is also zoomed,

so we're gonna use three fingers there,

and I'm going to move around, and just have a look.

Now we're going to pull up the "Notes", just to show you

that it works in an application.

So we've got the zoom there, and that's just...

Well, I can't move across there, to read the rest of that sentence,

and that's because, as we've said before,

I just need to use the three fingers to zoom across.

So we hope you're finding this interesting and useful.

Now, I've finished zooming, I just need to double-tap three fingers

and it's back to the normal magnification.

[silence]

Some people's low vision is best supported by reversing the colors on the iPad.

And the way that we do that, is we go into "Settings",

and again we're going into "General",

and "Accessibility", and (nice and simple this one)

we're just looking for the "Invert Colors" option here,

and we're just going to toggle that button to "On".

You see what's happened is that the white has become black

and the black has become white, more or less.

We've also got the high contrast orange in there as well.

And now if I go back to the home screen

with a single click of the "Home" button,

you'll see that change of color scheme has moved

right into the home screen there.

And if we just look at the "Notes"

we can see that also applies to apps.

So instead of the beige color that we had here with the black text,

we've now got a very dark blue with nice clear white text there.

[silence]

The next accessibility setting that we are going to look at is enlarging the text.

And we've got to go back to the "Settings" section there,

and again it's "General" and "Accessibility".

You'll see that the third option down in this list here is "Large Text".

So we're just going to click that one there.

Now we've got a selection of different fonts here.

What is important to note is this writing that's just at the bottom,

because what this says is "View larger text in Mail, Contacts, Calendars, Messages, and Notes."

And these are the only apps that this option will work in.

So I'm going to choose 48 there, you'll see you've got a little tick there

just to show us that that option has been successful.

Now we're going to go back to the home screen

and one of the apps that it said this would work in is "Notes".

So I'm just going to open "Notes" there,

and you'll see that instead of the tiny little text that we had before,

we've got the text in a much larger font to make it easier for many people, really, to read.

[silence]

The next function that we're going to look at is dictation.

And dictation can be used in any app where the keyboard is used.

We'll only use the "Notes" app today.

And click in there to get the keyboard to pop up to type a new note,

and you'll see just to the left of the space bar there

we've got this little button with a microphone.

I'm going to click on that, and hold my finger down,

and say what I need to say, and then release it when I'm finished.

[beep] "The iPad has lots of accessibility settings." [beep]

[silence]

Now the next thing that I'm going to show you is not an accessibility setting as such,

it's just an easy way to switch them on and off.

So, we're going to go to "Settings", and

we're going to go to "Accessibility" again,

and we're looking for "Triple-click Home".

So what we're doing is we're programming the function of the home button here,

so that when you click it three times it has different purposes.

Do select that option, and you can see that we can have the "Home" button do voice over,

invert the colors, that we mentioned before,

zoom, that we looked at before, and then there's a thing called "Assistive Touch"

which we're not looking at in this session.

I'm going to leave all those options on,

and then I'm going to go back to the "Home" button,

Now if I triple-click the "Home" button, there we go,

so what pops up is the options that we selected earlier.

So I can go to "Invert Colors" there,

and I don't have to go into the "Settings" to do it as we did before.

So it just makes things a little bit simpler.

Again, click-click-click,

and "Invert Colors", and I can switch that off.

Again, click-click-click, and we can switch the zoom off,

or we can enable the zoom again.

so that when I do three fingers

that option is available.

[silence]

Perhaps one of the most versatile and powerful accessibility settings on the iPad

is "Voice Over".

And what "Voice Over" does is it changes the way

that we interact with the whole iPad,

using completely different gestures and, uh, spoken feedback.

So we're going to the "Settings" here, and we're going to go into "General",

and back into "Accessibility",

Now you'll see the top option there is for "Voice Over".

Now, just before we switch the "Voice Over" option on,

I just want to point out a couple of things,

We can change the speaking rate just here,

We can ask it to speak hints, so I've got that little option enabled,

and I've also got it to give typing feedback for characters and words,

and we haven't got a hardware keyboard connected so - a Bluetooth keyboard, but if we did,

we could change the options just there.

I'd also like it to use phonetics, but we'll come on to that later.

Now, in terms of controlling the iPad when we have "Voice Over" activated,

we have to select, press once to select an option,

but then, what's different from before, is that we don't have to double-click it

to actually choose that option.

Three fingers is to scroll,

up, or to scroll down.

So I'm going to enable "Voice Over" now,

iPad: "Voice Over on. Settings: Landscape."

"Home button to the right."

And you see that it's just reading whatever button is activated there.

As I said before about moving around the iPad, if I click on this "Accessibility" button,

it just reads and gives a little hint as to what that button is.

That's the "Speak Hints" there.

So instead of just saying "Accessibility", it says "Accessibility, back button".

Now, in order to select that button, I need to then go back and -

iPad: "Accessibility, back button." - double-click it.

iPad: "Accessibility, back button."

"Setting: Vision. Heading."

Then go back into the "Voice Over" - iPad: "Voice Over, on. Button."

iPad: "Setting. Voice Over. On. Double-tap to toggle setting."

If I want to get it to read a piece of text, I can just click on the text.

iPad: "Tap once to select an item."

iPad: "Double-tap to activate the selected item."

iPad: "Swipe three fingers to scroll."

So now if I go to the "Home" button...

iPad: "Calendar. Sunday, the tenth of March. Seven new items."

iPad: "Double-tap to open."

It will read whatever's selected.

Now, in order to get it to select, I can move my finger across the screen,

iPad: "Contacts. Notes. Double-tap to open."

And then if I double-tap, you see that what happens

is it selects, it opens whatever app is selected.

So even if I select, double-click down here,

this is "Notes" that opens.

iPad: "Notes. Double-tap to open."

Now I can actually get it to scan through,

so I can listen to everything that is on the screen.

And the way that I do that is two fingers,

and I just scroll down.

iPad: "Notes. Contacts. Reminders. Pages. Keynote. Numbers. FileMaker Go."

iPad: "Bento. Maps. Calculator. iBooks."

iPad: "iBooks. Store button."

iPad: "iBooks. Double-tap to open."

So I'll just do that again, scroll down, and it just reads through the list.

iPad: "Nine items. FaceTime. Camera. iPhoto. Clock. Settings. Settings."

And I'm back into the "Voice Over" settings so I can just switch that off.

iPad: "Settings. Heading. Settings. Voice over off."

Now just to make it easier to switch "Voice Over" off and on, you might remember before

that we changed the format of the triple-click button.

Now we included "Voice Over" in the options that we chose there.

So I can just switch it on -

iPad: "Alert. Accessibility options. Selected. Voice Over. Button. Voice Over off."

And off.

[silence]

Now "Voice Over" can also help people with a vision impairment type.

Now we've got the keyboard up here, and in order to select a letter,

all we have to do is drag our finger over it

until we get to the right place and we hear the correct key,

and then we just lift the finger off the keyboard,

and the key will be - that letter will be typed. So -

iPad: "G, N, Z, S. A. A."

iPad: "D, A, R. R. D, E. E. Space. Space.

iPad: "I, J, U. Y. Y. I, O. O. U. U. L. With shift. Question mark. Question mark. U."

Notice that I had to do the shift before the question mark, if we wanted that character.

Obviously it's easier if you add a Bluetooth keyboard,

and some of those are quite small and quite portable these days,

however, that does mean you have to carry something else around you,

so there may be times when you do want to use the on-screen keyboard with "Voice Over".

[silence]