THE CODE FACTORY BLOG

In addition to his suite of 10 accessible apps, Mobile Accessibility is a powerful screen reader similar to TalkBack or Spiel and is capable of rendering audio prompts when you navigate in the phone’s menu or in other application.

Listen to Ana demoing Mobile Accessibility screen reader functionality. To follow Ana visit her blog at http://accessibleandroid.blogspot.com/p/submissions-suggestions-and-tips.html

If you start navigating in the phone’s menu, Mobile Accessibility will announce the menu icons and upon activating the focused icon, it will read the controls of the application. In order to navigate in the phone menu or in applications, one must use the track pad or arrow keys available on the phone. To read the currently focused element, one can use a short press of the search button on the phone. Keep in mind, when using Mobile Accessibility as your screen reader, the touch screen of the phone will be used for normal functions of the touch screen. It is important to note that as of now, Mobile Accessibility does not provide an accessible touch interface to navigate or control the touch screen of the phone. Phones that include a trackpad or dedicated arrow keys will work best when using applications outside of Mobile Accessibility.

Mobile Accessibility works with a wide variety of third-party applications available from the Android market. To ask about specific applications, consult the Mobile Accessibility mailing list or simply download an app from the market to try it for yourself.

In addition the following things should be noted and will prove helpful when using Mobile Accessibility as a screen reader outside the Mobile Accessibility window.

To activate options in a menu, to activate buttons in an application or to check or uncheck check boxes, you must use the trackpad or keyboard Enter key.

To navigate one step backward use the back button on the device. The back button is also used to exit an application. For some applications, you should use a Long press of the back key to exit the application.

To silence Mobile Accessibility speech, tap the proximity Sensor. The proximity sensor is located on the top of the screen and is near to the ear piece. To know the exact position of the proximity sensor, check the phone user guide. Note this option will only work if you check the option “Stop Speech when tapping the proximity sensor” under Mobile Accessibility > Settings > Audio and Vibration.

To read text in edit boxes, use the system wide virtual keyboard navigation keystrokes. Note, you can use the volume down key to toggle navigation modes when the virtual keyboard is active and can use slide right / left to read the next or previous block of text based on your navigation settings (characters, words, or sentences).

Mobile Accessibility includes an easy-to-use and powerful speech recognition feature. Please note that your phone must be running Android 2.2 or later and be connected to the Internet using Wi-Fi or a data plan to use this feature. Speech recognition can be used both in edit fields of Mobile Accessibility but also in edit fields outside of Android.

To begin speech recognition, long press the Volume down key. The device will vibrate twice when it’s ready to listen. When you’re done speaking, release the volume down key. A list of possible matches will be spoken. You can use the arrow keys or swipe up and down to move through them. To accept the current suggestion, double tap, press enter or the volume down key. To review the current suggestion by word use the volume up key repeatedly.

Speech recognition can be used to enter a single word or an entire text message. Speak slowly and clearly, and try to limit background noise whenever possible. You may wish to speak your message one sentence or a few words at a time to more quickly gain matching results.

Tips for speech recognition:

1. Receiving a call: Mobile Accessibility makes it easy to determine who is calling and answer phone calls using the touchscreen or volume keys. When you receive a call, double tap anywhere on the screen to hear the name or number of the person who is calling. To answer a call, swipe up with one finger. Swipe down with one finger to reject a call. Please note to avoid accidental answering or rejecting of a call, you will need to use a longer swipe to answer or reject a call. If you have enabled the setting under Settings> Advanced > Enable Volume Keys to Answer / Reject calls, you can also press the volume up key to answer a call or the volume down key to reject a call.
2. Performing tasks while on a call: While on a call, it is possible to perform several commands, including placing the phone on speaker phone, answering or rejecting additional calls, or entering numbers for interactive telephone systems.
3. Speaker Phone: Simply double tap to toggle the status of speaker phone. The phone will toggle between using the speaker for your ear or the louder, room speaker.
4. Call Waiting: If you receive another call, you can use double tap to hear the caller ID for the additional call. Use swipe up to answer or swipe down to reject the call. If you have enabled the setting under Settings> Advanced > Enable Volume Keys to Answer / Reject calls, you can also press the volume up key to answer the additional call or the volume down key to reject it.
5. Adjusting Call Volume: To adjust the call volume, use the volume up or down keys. If you have enabled the setting under Settings> Advanced > Use Volume Keys to Answer/Reject calls, be sure to press the volume up or down keys while the phone is near your ear to avoid hanging up the call. Alternatively if you have this setting disabled, the volume keys will also allow you to adjust the speaker volume when the speaker phone is enabled.
6. Entering numbers while on a call: Sometimes, it may be necessary to dial additional numbers while on a call, such as a voicemail password. To do this, press the menu key. The default Android call screen will be activated. Please note this feature works best with phones that include a dedicated hardware keyboard.

Listen to the following demo: Speech recognition with Mobile Accessibility by JJ Meddaugh. To follow JJ, visit the Blind Bargain website.

The web experience has become an integral part of our lives. It is hard to imagine life without the Internet, and especially on our mobile devices. So, Mobile Accessibility provides easy to use and powerful access to web content with an accessible Web browser, allowing you to navigate web pages in the way you are used to with your desktop screen reader.

Let’s understand how to work with the Mobile Accessibility Web Application. To start browsing the web, go to the Mobile Accessibility home screen, and navigate to the web application using the arrow keys or the touchscreen. Then activate the browser by either double tapping on the screen or pressing the center of the trackpad or the enter key of your phone keyboard.

Once launched, the Mobile Accessibility web app will load the home page. The default page is code factory’s home page. If you want, you can change the default home page in the web settings dialog.

While a page is loading, the mobile accessibility web app announces your download progress in percents, i.e. 44 percent. Once a page is fully loaded, a page summary with the number of frames, headings, elements and links will be spoken. At this point, you can begin to navigate the page using Mobile accessibility’s web commands.

You can navigate a web page using Mobile Accessibility navigation commands. To make the interface simple, Mobile Accessibility uses navigation modes. You can change the navigation mode and then use the Navigate To Previous Element or Navigate To Next Element commands to explore the web page. Use the long press of the menu key to toggle navigation modes. The default navigation mode is navigation by links, so if you want to navigate to the next link, you would use the swipe right gesture or press right arrow, which is the navigate next element command. If instead, you want to navigate to the next heading, you would long press the menu key once to change the navigation mode to navigate by headings and then swipe right or press right arrow to Navigate to the next element.

Similar to other Mobile Accessibility apps, another important feature of the Mobile Accessibility Web App is that you can press the menu key or triple tap to bring up a quick menu to change some options and issue a few commands that are not available using gestures.

Please keep in mind that you will need an Internet connection in order to use the Mobile Accessibility Web application. If you do not connect via Wi-Fi, please check the data plan of your operator so that you know exactly what charges are involved with downloading Internet data.

To read more about how to use the Web app of Mobile Accessibility visit http://www.codefactory.es/MA/en/ma_1_0_manual.html#_Toc286743672

Listen to the following demo: Web app of Mobile Accessibility by Carlos Palomino

To follow Carlos, visit his blog at http://www.carlospalomino.com

Caroline Ragot explains the many exciting features of Mobile Speak 4

Mobile Speak 4 in Main Menu

Hello Everyone,

In this approximately 11 minute episode Podcast, Mark Taylor discusses Mobile Speak 4.0 and the future of wireless handset accessibility with Mr. Eduard Sanchez, founder and CEO of Code Factory.

Enjoy!

Mark and Eduard on Mobile Speak 4