We also use importantForAccessibility:no to turn OFF focus for the ‘+’ TextView, as the text beneath the two badges provides a description and so the ‘+’ is more confusing than helpful if read aloud.įor both of these, manual testing on a real device with TalkBack turned on is the best indication of whether the context makes sense without visuals. android:contentDescription='tap to toggle extra person information' If this was a button it would read ‘ button, double tap to activate’ by default, but for our ImageView icon we manually specify the action as we do not have this default. For any ImageView that gains focus this is essential, otherwise a screen reader will instead read the useless ‘unlabelled’ to the user. The contentDescription is what is read when an element gains focus. Two properties are used: android:contentDescription and android:importantForAccessibility. We won’t look at the styling specifics of the layout here as they are fairly unique to this example, but the accessibility touches are worth highlighting. Views should react to this change in font size, with all elements still present and functioning. Within the same settings menu the default base font size can be adjusted, scaling from 1.0. Of key importance is that the correct elements are focusable, have descriptions, and changes to the view are announced. Without this, an app becomes unusable for many visually impaired users. Gestures are used to navigate around the page, with descriptions of focused elements read aloud. This can be turned on from the device’s settings, and also has a first time use guide built in. GIF of the end app result Android accessibility (a11y)Īll Android devices come with a built in screen reader named TalkBack. The code this is based on was co-written with Calum Turner. All code is available in this example repo, creating a single activity with an animated view within it. So here we go! Let’s look at writing a native ‘expand’ animation in Kotlin, and talk about how to assist those with TalkBack or enlarged text turned on. There were also few code examples of accessibility considerations within native animations. When researching examples for a first ever Android contribution, few examples existed for animations written in Kotlin.

Android accessibility screen reader