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Android Accessibility Settings for Each Disability

May 24, 2018

Android accessibility features are a great offering which eases the way we use our smartphones. It’s on our personal preference we can make a lot of changes in accessibility settings for us to make things easier. For some, the issue might be with the font size, with colors, or sounds and notifications. We might have a problem with the way we are used to managing a PC.

These accessibility settings are found in every smartphone out there regardless of the make. You can find them in your phone’s Settings. Out of all the smartphones, we found the Samsung’s TouchWiz OS’s accessibility settings organized in a great manner. So, we are going to explain these settings based on them. However, all the below mentioned features can be found in all the Android phones.

For Vision

  • Voice Assistant

This one is similar to that of what you find in a PC. It will help you navigate through your phone. When you tap on something, it tells you what you just clicked and you can open what you clicked by double tapping on it. Sadly, there are some functions which can’t be used while the Voice Assistant is turned on.

  • Text-to-speech

This function helps you in reading out several things such as an SMS and web pages. All you need to do is, select the language and speed.

  • Voice Label

This feature helps you interact with wireless things such as NFC tags where you have stored your data. You can insert voice data in these NFC tags for it to tell you about your nearby objects.

  • Font Size

Here, you can set the font size you prefer from small, tiny, to huge and extra huge.

  • High Contrast Fonts

Turning this on will make the texts more visible and highlighted than the background of your screen.

  • Magnifier Window

By turning this on, you can magnify the content on your screen. You can select the amount of zoom and size of the magnifier window.

  • Magnification Gestures

This setting enables you to force magnify any page on your phone by triple tapping anywhere on the screen with one finger. You can zoom in and out by pinching two or more fingers together or apart.

  • Screen Color

In here, you can change your display to grayscale, negative colors, or manage the colors. It will conduct a quick test of your ability for viewing colors and tells you if you need an adjustment.

Hearing

  • Sound detectors

With the help of sound-detecting, you can enable alerts from your phone if someone rings your doorbell. You first need to record how your doorbell sounds and then you are all good to go. Make sure you place the device 3m from the doorbell for best results.

  • Notifications

This will allow you to turn on the blinking of your smartphone when someone calls you or when an alarm is going on.

  • Other settings

There are other options such as turning off all the sound, improving the sound quality if you use hearing aids, and also adjust the left & right sound balance while using earphones.

Dexterity and Interaction

  • Universal Switch

With this, you can interact with your device in different ways possible. You can use external accessories, or use the front camera to detect the rotation of your head, the opening of your mouth, and blinking of your eyes.

  • Assistant Menu

The assistant menu will give you quick access to common settings and recent apps. And, you can see a contextual menu option for selected applications in the assistant menu.

  • Easy Screen Turn On

You can enable this to turn on your phone by moving your hand over the proximity sensor.

  • Touch and Hold period

You can make the touch and hold quicker by 0.5s or longer by 1.5s including a medium by 1s and also set your custom time.

  • Interaction control

With this, you can block areas of the screen from touch interaction. You can also set a timer for this.

Other interaction settings include adjusting touch size pad, reorder or remove menu, cursor size, and cursor speed.

More Accessibility Settings

  • Direct Access

This lets you add shortcuts to settings. After enabling, you can quickly open accessibility settings by triple-tapping the home button.

  • Answering and Ending Calls

You can set the power button to end the call and home button to answer the call. You can also use voice commands to answer and reject calls.

  • Single Tap Mode

With this mode, you can dismiss or snooze alarms, and answer or reject calls with a single tap.

So, these are the Accessibility which might make your life easier with your Android phone. If you know other android accessibility which you found were great, let us know in the comments.

Source: Sanvada

Related Information

Android Colour Contrast Text to Speech