After reviewing this week’s reading materials, I learned a lot more about the technology I use on a daily basis, like my phone. I have an iPhone 8+ currently and have been and iPhone user for many years now. I have not really explored all of the features on my phone though until diving deeper through this assignment. I thought a lot of the features on my phone were there to make things more convenient to use and faster to display information and material. I learned that most accessibility features on the iPhone are not for preference, but they are to help those with disabilities better use their mobile devices. This is not something I had considered because it isn’t something that affects myself. I gained a lot of knowledge and a better understanding of how mobility is different for everyone.
The first accessibility feature I looked into on my mobile device was reduce transparency. This feature is used to blur out content to help better create depth and visibility. This feature can be accessed by locating settings, general, accessibility and then reduce transparency. The goal of this feature is to increase legibility. I found this feature very helpful, since I turned it on for the purposes of this assignment. I wear glasses and contacts and when I am not wearing them sometimes my eyes struggle to focus on my electronic screens. I found this to be a very helpful feature that has benefitted the use of my phone. Overall, this accessibility feature is a small change that has made a great impact on my usage, and I think it could also help others with poor eyesight have more readability!
The second accessibility feature I explored was the zoom feature. This feature is accessed through settings, general, accessibility, and then zoom. I turned this feature on for a night when I had a lot of emails to respond to through the Gmail app on my phone. This feature allowed me to better see what I was doing and read the small print at a more efficient rate. I think I could see myself using this feature again in the future when I have a lot of reading or tedious tasks to do on my phone. I think for accessibility purposes this is largely important for those of an older generation using small technology devices. I know that my parents and some of older generations I know sometimes struggle being able to type or read because the text is small on the device. This feature helps greatly with this and can definitely help those who need more help seeing what is on their screen. It’s also cool because within the feature there are three different ways of how you can use it. You can double tap three fingers to zoom, drag three fingers to move around the screen. And double tap/drag three fingers to zoom. I found this feature to be very accessible and easy to use and something of a great benefit for those who need more helping seeing their screen.
The final feature I looked at was the voice recording portion in the text feature of an iPhone. This is located on the right side of the text bar, and the settings for it are under general settings, accessibility, speech, and then speech selection. I attached a photo of the feature in uses rather than where to find it. Personally, I use this feature when I am in a rush and want to send a longer text but don’t have the time to type it out. I have also had friends use this feature on their phone and computer to type out papers when they are having trouble focusing, because this allows them to talk it out to collect their thoughts. For accessibility purposes this feature is very cool though. It allows users who have arthritis, turrets, or a learning disability to better text and communicate. It is easier for most who struggle with this to speak rather than type which makes this feature the best way for them to use your phone. This is one of the easiest to use and largely beneficial features I found through this assignment. It gave me appreciation because I use it just when I’m lazy, but for some this is their preferred method of communication.
Discussion questions:
- Many of these accessibility features are taken for granted, if they were not here how would people with disabilities be excluded from using phones?
- Do you think that most in our society just want the easiest and most accessible way to use technology?
- How can we make phones more accessible?
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