VoiceOver
This is the built-in screen reader
for iDevices. Users can activate it
by triple-clicking the Home button
(the triple-click feature can be customized in Settings). To choose content to
be read aloud, users can type braille
or QWERTY keyboard commands
or make on-screen gestures, such
as a single finger swipe to move the
VoiceOver cursor across the screen
and a double-tap to make
selections. It takes some
practice, that’s for sure,
and it may even annoy you
if you are not visually impaired. But for blind users,
VoiceOver has made navigating the device and accessing iBooks, Pages, Notes,
Mail, and hundreds of other
apps possible. In addition,
VoiceOver enables the use
of a braille display via Bluetooth connectivity.
Zoom
This is the built-in screen magnifier
on iDevices. Once a user turns it on
in Settings, she taps twice with three
fingers to activate the zoom window
and drags three fingers across the
screen to move the zoom window.
She can control the zoom level by
double-tapping and then dragging
three fingers up or down.
Camera and
Magnification Apps
A student with low vision who can-
not see the whiteboard or read his
worksheets can use the camera on his
iDevice, along with third-party apps,
such as EyeSight, Spectacles, Bigger
and Brighter, and iMagnifier, to trans-
form the iDevice into an inexpensive
video magnifier. And numerous opti-
cal character recognition (OCR) apps
can capture print and convert the
image to a text file.
Prizmo is an OCR app
that makes print accessible
to a blind student by tak-
ing a picture of a page of
text and extracting it from
the image so it can be read
aloud with VoiceOver.
Additional accessibility
features that run universally
on iDevices include Invert
Colors, Large Text, and
Speak Selection.
user hesitates after typing a single
letter, a braille contraction may be
inserted automatically. Finally, when
editing words, the user must turn the
contractions off to insert individual
letters, but this can happen with a
single keystroke.
That said, an iDevice with braille
input allows a visually impaired
student to create texts that both the
student and teacher can read. In the
classroom, the teacher can see what
the student is typing and is not reliant
on the TVI or braillist to translate
between the two literacy mediums.
