Day 228. Abstracting your interface in a way that can offer multiple input and output mechanisms is key when developing software with an accessibility mindset. #Apple has brought this to the next level in #visionOS.

Check out the session from #WWDC23: https://developer.apple.com/wwdc23/10034

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Day 227. #VoiceOver will traverse elements from left-right, and from top-bottom. If for any reason you need to change that order, in #SwiftUI you can change the accessibility sort priority. A higher priority number in the container means it will go first.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/view/accessibility(sortpriority:)

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Day 226. 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.

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Day 225. Support both orientations, if possible. I know not even iOS itself does it, but it hasn't always been like that. You'll create a more robust UI that will be easier to port to iPadOS. And especially, don't force your users to rotate their devices.

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Day 224. "We have one job, and that's to make our apps work. And if you are not implementing accessibility features, you are forgetting about making it work for a lot of people" @novallswift. Couldn't have said it better!

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Day 223. If your watch app has good VoiceOver support, chances are you'll also have good Assistive Touch support. But an improvement you can make is to implement a quick action (triggered with a double pinch) when there is a main action you can perform.

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Day 222. Assistive Touch for the #AppleWatch works like magic. It lets you use your watch with gestures with the hand of the same arm you are wearing your watch on. No need to use your nose! If you don't have it on, is because you don't know about it.

More on how it works in this video from #Apple: https://youtu.be/EJawhH-m_TE

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Day 221. It is useful to know these #VoiceOver gestures to activate/deactivate Screen Curtain, pause/resume VoiceOver, easily simulate a long press for opening context menus, or quickly move the cursor to the screen's first or last elements.

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Day 196. Once you learn some basic gestures with #VoiceOver, it is very important to master the Rotor. It is very useful to also know some more power user gestures like the Magic Tap or the Escape gesture.

More on the Rotor: https://iosdev.space/@dadederk/109491976454728208
Magic Tap: https://iosdev.space/@dadederk/109678705836709212
Perform Escape: https://iosdev.space/@dadederk/109689823700132752

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Day 195. When using VoiceOver on a device without a home button it can first be confusing how you can do a few things, including going to Home from an app, or opening the App Switcher, Control Center, or Notifications. Here's a quick guide for you.

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Day 194. Let's quickly remember a few of VoiceOver's most important gestures that will let you do some of the most basic actions including selection, interacting, navigating, and scrolling.

And Apple has a great video: https://youtu.be/qDm7GiKra28

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Day 193. The most straightforward way for making sure your colors work well in all appearances (dark, light, increase contrast, and all combinations) is to use the provided system colors. Check the background and label semantic colors too.

All the info in the Color section of Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/color

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Day 192. If you don't use Color Sets in your Asset Catalog, and you define your color palette in code, you can still check if the user has Increase Contrast enabled to offer a slightly different color that improves the contrast ratio even more.

Check if the darker system colors are enabled: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiaccessibility/1615087-isdarkersystemcolorsenabled

Listen to a notification: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiaccessibility/1615177-darkersystemcolorsstatusdidchang

Check your trait collection: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uitraitcollection/3238079-accessibilitycontrast

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Day 191. I recommend running your app with Double-length Pseudolanguage. It is a great way to stress-testing your app and see how adaptive it is and if your UI will hold to other languages that might be a bit more verbose or even with larger text sizes.

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Day 190. Be My Eyes, founded by Hans Jørgen Wiberg, enables people who are blind and have low vision to identify objects by pairing them with volunteers from around the world using their cameras. Winner of an Apple Design Award 2021 for Social Impact.

Ted talk: https://youtu.be/IfeLJxCSLC0

More about Be My Eyes: https://bemyeyes.com/about

Blog post on Be My Eyes winning the Apple Design Award: https://www.bemyeyes.com/blog/be-my-eyes-wins-an-apple-design-award

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Day 189. Sometimes it won't be enough to make colors darker or lighter to Increase Contrast. As always, it is important to do some testing. The same colors might be used with different backgrounds or text colors and the contrast could actually get worse.

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Day 188. You can enable the possibility of providing assets for different appearances including light/dark modes and high contrast. As we've seen, that's valid for colors, but you can do the same for images too!

https://iosdev.space/@dadederk/110412340553167653

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Day 187. If you use Color Sets in the Assets Catalog to define your color palette, make sure you enable variants for the Any, Light, and Dark appearances and also High Contrast. You'll be able to define variations of the color that have better contrast.

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Day 186. I used to think of Zoom as an accessibility feature that didn't need support from developers. But actually, testing with Zoom might unveil some issues and bad practices. Watch out for buttons that change something far away on the screen.

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Day 185. Zoom (an accessibility feature in iOS, not to confuse with the video call app) lets the user magnify the screen if the user needs to zoom in a region to be able to see any details a bit closer. It is useful to know the gestures that let you zoom in, back out, move around the screen, adjust zoom level or show its menu.

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