Interviews

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).