iOS Accessibility VoiceOver Gestures

VoiceOver is a device screen reader that provides audible descriptions of what is on a device's screen - from battery level, to the name of the person calling, to which app your "finger" is on.

VoiceOver assists with testing your app for accessibility functionality through a bluetooth connection between the device and the Kobiton Mac mini.

If your system is not setup for VoiceOver gestures on iOS devices as described below, please open a ticket.

VoiceOver Prerequisites

  • iOS 12.0 and later.
  • Device must be physically connected to the host machine (Mac mini).
  • The Mac mini hosting devices must run MacOS Big Sur or below.
  • Kobiton GEM or Orion Audio Board Card. 

Bluetooth pairing for on-premises iOS devices

  1. On the Mac mini, open System Preferences, enable Bluetooth toggle button. Leave the Bluetooth window open as you'll need it for pairing discoverability. 
  2. On the Kobiton Portal, launch a session with an iOS device.
  3. On the iOS device, navigate to Settings > Bluetooth and enable bluetooth.
  4. On the Bluetooth screen, under MY DEVICES, select the Mac mini the device is connected to.
    accesibility-my-device.png
  5. On the Mac mini, click Pair on the prompt confirming to pair the device to the virtual keyboard.

If the device is not pairing, try the following to establish a connection:

  • Instead of initiating the pairing from the device, initiate the pairing from the Mac mini.

  • Disconnect and disable Bluetooth on other devices.

  • If the device had successfully paired to the Mac mini, but won't reconnect, click the information icon, select Forget This Device, and re-pair the device.

VoiceOver setup

To set up voiceOver on your iOS device:

  1. Navigate to Settings > General > Accessibility > VoiceOver and toggle to On.

Note: VoiceOver overrides common gestures used to navigate a device. When VoiceOver is enabled, you must use VoiceOver gestures on the device. 

For a list of common VoiceOver gestures, click here

 

VoiceOver on Kobiton devices

  1. On the physical device, navigate to Settings > Bluetooth; enable Bluetooth.
  2. On the physical device, navigate to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver; enable VoiceOver.
  3. Scroll down, click Audio and enable Send to HDMI. 
    audio-HDMI-toggle.png
  4. Back on the Kobiton portal, enable the VoiceOver icon. 
    VoiceOver-on-the-portal.png
  5. Start testing.

Supported Commands

VoiceOver gesture On-screen equivalent
Activate selected item double-tap
Double-tap selected item triple-tap
Select next item swipe right
Select previous item swipe left
perform or move to the next selected option swipe up or down
Pause/resume speech two-finger tap
Special action two-finger double tap
Open item chooser two-finger triple tap
Read all content from the first object in selected area two-finger swipe up
Read all content from selected item two-finger swipe down
Go back, cancel, close pop-up two-finger scrub back-and-forth
Select / deselect two-finger pinch out/in
Speak current page number and position three-finger tap
Toggle speech on/off three-finger double-tap
Toggle screen curtain on/off three-finger triple-tap
Move to next horizontal screen page three-finger swipe left
Move to previous horizontal screen page three-finger swipe right
Move/scroll down a page three-finger swipe up
Move/scroll up a page three-finger swipe down
Switch to next/previous app four-finger swipe left/right
Open or close multitask pane four-finger swipe up/down
Go to home screen four-finger pinch in

 

Known Limitations

  • VoiceOver gestures are not available on Android devices.
  • VoiceOver is only available on iOS 12.0 and later as the devices must have the the Send to HDMI option.

  • A macOS GEM connects to a limited number of Bluetooth devices. In practice, VoiceOver works best when only two to three devices are connected at a time.

  • Currently, you cannot perform mixed actions between Rotor Commands. We can only perform one action at a time.

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