Finding your way around screens with VoiceOver

Exploring with your fingertip

The simplest, but least controllable, way to explore the contents of any screen is to slide your finger slowly around the screen and listen to VoiceOver announcing the item under your finger.

Exploring with swipes right and left

A more systematic way to explore the screen is to swipe right or left through items on the screen one by one. This way, you get no feel for the location of items on the screen, but you get to know their order. If you are progressing through a set of items which continues over more than one screen, swiping right will usually continue on to the second and subsequent screens.  There are occasions when this doesn't work, though.

It is not always possible to reach all the items on the screen by continuing to swipe, because screens may be divided in to separate areas. 

For example, the Home Screen is in three areas. At the very top is the status bar, where you'll find the time at the centre. The main part of the screen is below the status bar and is a list of apps. At the bottom of the screen is the dock, which contains the apps that are locked in this position for all app screens.

If you tap the status bar, you will only be able to swipe right and left within the status bar. If you want to select from the apps in the main part of the screen, you'll need to touch below the status bar and hear the name of an app. Now it is possible to swipe right and left to explore all of the lower part of the screen, including the dock.

Other screens may be more complex.

a mix of exploring and swiping

Many people use both exploring the screen and swiping. For example, many buttons are easy to find by their location such as back buttons near the top left of screens and, with experience, you are likely to become familiar with the location of several items within apps you use regularly. Swiping is a convenient way to move through lists and remember that you don't need to wait for VoiceOver to stop speaking before swiping on to the next item.

Items you will find on screens in apps

Now, what you find on a screen will depend on what kind of app you are using.  It is not practical to go in to all the detail, but here are a few items to look out for.

tabs

Many apps, for example the Phone app, have a row of tabs at the bottom of their screens. This is called a tab bar. You can swipe right or left within the tab bar to locate individual tabs or you can explore them with a sliding finger. A tab is selected with a double tap. Each tab displays a different function of the app. The Phone app has a Favourites tab which displays a screen listing your favourite contacts. This is followed by the Recents tab which displays a screen listing recent calls. I'll leave you to discover the remaining tabs in the Phone app for yourself. When you select a tab at the bottom of the screen, VoiceOver will remain focused on the tab and you will need to explore the top of the screen with a sliding finger to begin discovering the content of the screen.

button

when VoiceOver speaks a name followed by "button" then this is an item you can activate by double tapping with one finger anywhere on the screen. The name is your clue to what it does. It may well bring up a popup window that you can swipe right through to investigate.

text field

when VoiceOver speaks "text field" the focus is on an item that you can type, handwrite or dictate text into. Double tap anywhere on the screen to start entering text. You should then hear "text field, is editing". Note that in some apps, text fields may be ready for editing as soon as you visit them. In this case you will immediately hear "text field, is editing" and you can begin entering text immediately.

link

when VoiceOver speaks a name followed by "link" the focus is on a link to a web page. The name hopefully explains where the link will take you. Double tap to visit that web page.

adjustable items

after VoiceOver describes an item, its description is sometimes followed by the word "adjustable". This means that you can change this item by swiping up or down and not by swiping right or left. Most volume controls are adjustable and you will find adjustable items in many apps. A current example is the stories tray in the Instagram app. There's even an adjustable item on the home screen. The search item at the bottom centre of the apps lets you move between home screen pages by swiping up or down.

section index

 when VoiceOver speaks "section index, adjustable, swipe up or down with one finger to adjust the value", the focus is on an item that's a bit like an address book with tabs labelled with the letters of the alphabet. The index is positioned vertically along the extreme right of the screen. The Contacts app has an index like this which behaves very much like a paper address book. Swipe up or down until you hear the letter you want then swipe right to go through the entries beginning with the letter you selected.

More generally, if VoiceOver announces any name, followed by the word "adjustable" then this item can be changed by swiping up or down with one finger.

picker item

when you hear VoiceOver speak "picker item, swipe up or down with one finger to adjust the value", the focus is on an item that is rather like a dial that you can roll up or down. This is often used to set times or dates. For a time VoiceOver may first land on hour which you can adjust with swipes up or down and then swipe right to land on minutes which can be adjusted similarly. There may be a button such as done or next in a toolbar above the picker.

useful rotor settings

Some rotor settings can be helpful in skipping quickly to useful items. For example, on a web page, you can turn the rotor to "headings" so that swiping down moves the focus forward from heading to heading on the page, skipping over any other text or images. This is the nearest equivalent to a sighted reader skimming a web page.  See my description of the rotor for more detail..

vertical scroll bar

in many apps, you will find a vertical scroll bar at the extreme right of the screen when you are viewing a long page. When the vertical scroll bar is touched, you can scroll quickly through a long item by swiping vertically up or down.  VoiceOver will announce the percentage point you have reached every time you swipe up or down. This can be much faster than swiping vertically with three fingers a screen at a time.

A note on vertical navigation:

There is a rotor setting called vertical navigation which was designed to allow VoiceOver users to read vertically down through the columns of a table. This setting is also sometimes useful in reaching items that cannot be reached with right and left swipes. In particular, I have used it as a temporary work around in apps that have bugs which make it impossible to reach some buttons. If you turn the rotor to "vertical navigation", a single finger swipe up or down will move VoiceOver's focus vertically up or down the items on screen and this can occasionally reach items that are otherwise inaccessible with horizontal swipes right or left. For example, if you tap on the status bar at the top of the Home Screen, swiping right will not permit you to leave the status bar and progress through the apps on the home screen. If you set the rotor to "vertical navigation" and swipe down with one finger, the VoiceOver focus will move down from the status bar and in to the array of apps on the Home Screen. This same approach can sometimes reach otherwise inaccessible buttons within apps.

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