About Mobile A11y # Mobile A11y is a blog about building accessible mobile apps written by a mobile developer and accessibility expert. The site is intended to be practical, and mostly code-focused, but you might also find thoughts on testing and design for mobile accessibility too. The site is aimed at developers rather than accessibility…
Accessibility is a long word. It’s not the simplest of words to read or to spell, so it seems like a word that would be a good candidate for abbreviation. The common abbreviation of accessibility is a11y. We take the A and Y from the beginning and end of accessibility, and 11 for the number…
Laura’s introduction to web accessibility jumped out to me because it’s available as an audiobook. Being dyslexic I struggle to read, so prefer to listen to audiobooks where available. Unfortunately, most technical books aren’t available as audiobooks for a couple of potentially obvious reasons. Hearing code or descriptions of diagrams and illustrations read aloud may…
This is a personally curated list of resources I have used and think others may find helpful too. I’m always looking for new high quality mobile accessibility and inclusion resources to add here. Please share any you find with me via email or Twitter. Code # Android # Android Developers: Build more accessible apps Android’s…
For a while now I’ve been looking at possibilities for automated accessibility testing on iOS. Unfortunately, I’ve not found any option so far that I’m happy with. I am a big fan of Apple’s XCUI Test framework. Although it has its limitations, I believe there’s scope for creating valid accessibility tests using this framework. Over…
A11yUITests is an extension to XCTestCase that adds tests for common accessibility issues that can be run as part of an XCUITest suite. I’ve written a detailed discussion of the tests available if you’re interested in changing/implementing these tests yourself. Alternatively, follow this quick start guide. Getting Started # Adding A11yUITests # I’m assuming you’re…
Live Regions are one of my favourite accessibility features on Android. They’re a super simple solution to a common accessibility problem that people with visual impairments can stumble across. Say you have a game app, really any type of game. Your user interacts with the play area, and as they do, their score increases or…
iOS’ UIAccessibility API is huge. I like to think I know it pretty well, but I’m always being surprised by discovering features I previously had no idea about. Like many things on iOS, the documentation for UIAccessibility is not always complete, even for parts of the API that have been around for years. In an…
I was supposed to be attending the 2020 CSUN Assistive Technology conference to present a couple of talks, unfortunately with COVID-19 starting to take hold at that time, I wasn’t able to attend. In lieu of attending I decided to record one of the talks I was scheduled to present on Accessibility in SwiftUI. SwiftUI…
A few months ago I shared a project I’d been working on for iOS exploring the accessibility API available on that platform. The Android accessibility API is equally large and full featured, and really deserves the same treatment. So here’s A11y Box for Android. A11y Box for Android is an exploration of what is available…