Category: Technology

In this article, we’ll look at some things you can do to make the Kindle App on the iPad easier to see.

Watch our tutorial on making the iPad Kindle App Easier to see

Increase the font size

When adjusting the font size, don’t simply put it to the maximum. Instead, you want to strike a balance between a large font and enough words on one line to make reading comfortable.

Change the typeface

Many visually impaired people find reading sans-serif fonts such as Helvetica or Amazon Ember Bold easier than serif fonts. The serif refers to the little tail on letters such as T or a.

Change the theme

Many people find that there is too much glare when reading black text on a white background. The Kindle App for iPad has four themes, black on white, brown on sepia, black on mint green and white on black. Many people with Macular Degeneration find reading white text on a black background more comfortable. You can also adjust the brightness of the kindle screen independently of the rest of the ipad to help reduce glare.

Change text alignment to left aligned

Because of unequal spacing between words, many visually impaired people find fully justified text (text where both margins are straight) difficult to read. Once you reach the end of one line, it is harder to find the following line. Changing the text to left aligned gives a jagged right margin, making it easier to locate the following line.

Increase line spacing

Increasing the line spacing makes it easier for the reader to stay on the line they are currently reading without drifting on the line above or below.

Increase the size of the margins.

Many people find reading shorter lines more comfortable than reading long lines of text.

Use the Screen Ruler

The screen ruler helps the reader focus on the line they are currently reading. It also acts as place holder allowing the user to quickly locate their place on the page if they look away from the iPad. However, it does not remember the location on the page between reading sessions.

To access the screen ruler, tap anywhere on the screen, choose Aa and tap on the more tab, then select reading ruler and switch on the reading ruler. There are several ruler styles, so you can experiment to find which best suits you.

Watch our instructional video on using Siri Shortcuts to read Barcodes

Meet Mary

Mary has Macular Degeneration and enjoys listing to her CD collection however she struggles to read the titles of her CDs. The only way she knows that she’s got the right disk is by putting it into her CD player and playing the first track.

In this article, we’ll show how Mary can use her iPhone, Siri and Seeing AI to tell her what CD she is holding.

What is Seeing AI

Seeing AI is an app developed by Microsoft that uses artificial intelligence to recognise text, currency, faces and products and speaks the result.

Installing Seeing AI

If you don’t already have seeing AI, download it from the Apple App Store. VoiceOver will announce it as “Seeing AI talking camera for the blind” the app is free.

Setting up Siri Short Cuts

1. In Seeing AI, navigate to the menu button in the top left-hand corner. VoiceOver will announce “Menu – Button“
2. Swipe right with one finger until VoiceOver announces “settings – button“, then double tap
3. Swipe right until VoiceOver says Configure “Siri Short Cuts Button”, then double tap
4. We want to recognise a product so swipe right with one finger until you hear “recognise product“
5. A dialogue box will now appear on the screen and VoiceOver will say “edit in short cuts”, if VoiceOver doesn’t announce it, place your finger in the middle of the screen until you hear VoiceOver say “Hey Siri“.
6. The default phrase is “Hey Siri, Recognise Product” – You can change this to your own phrase by swiping right until you hear “change voice phrase”, the double tap and say the phrase you want to use, you will then hear a beep and voice over will say “inserted” followed by your phrase, if you’re happy with this swipe right until you reach done.
7. Your Siri short cut is now set up. Double tap on the back button to return to the main seeing AI screen.

Now all you have to do is say “Hey Siri, Recognise Product”, when Seeing AI sees the barcode it will announce the product name.

Conclusion

So now Mary can use the barcode reader on Seeing AI to tell her what CD she has in her hand. If the CD didn’t exist in the database she could also use the short text feature to read the title, or the document feature to read the track listing.

Mary can also use this to identify other products in her house, such as items in Kitchen cupboards. Or even when she’s out shopping, for Seeing AI to work though you do need an internet connection.

Having correctly structured HTML headings in documents is essential for helping people using accessibility technologies find their way around your webpage. But what are headings, and why are they so important.

Video explaining HTML Headings

What are HTML Headings

HTML has six heading levels labelled <h1>..<h6> with <h1> being the most important heading and <h6> being the least important.

The <h1> heading is only used once per page and represents the main heading of the page. The remaining levels can be used as many times as needed but must be used in order.

How to write Headings in HTML

The code for HTML headings is as follows:-

<h1>Main Heading Text</h1>
	<h2>Section Heading Text</h2>
		<h3>Subheading Text</h3>

Why you should use headings

When a sighted person looks at a webpage, they use factors such as the size, colours, fonts and position of the text to get clues to how the page is structured.

In this example, the main heading <h1> is the largest, centred and bold. In addition, the section headings <h2> are bold and have an underline, and the subheadings <h3> for each section are bold.

This is what the HTML code looks like for the heading structure in this document.

<h1>Maine Coon</h1>
    <h2>History</h2>
        <h3>Origin</h3>
        <h3>Cat Shows</h3>
    <h2>Description</h2>
        <h3>Markings</h3>
        <h3>Habits</h3>
        <h3>Personality</h3>
        <h3>Size</h3>
        <h3>Diet</h3>
    <h2>Health</h2>

When a person uses a screen reader, they have access to none of these navigational clues. Screen readers read text on the screen; they have no way of knowing what is and is not important. So we have to tell them the structure of the document, one of the ways of doing this is by using HTML headings. The screen reader user can then use navigation tools built into their screen reader to move around the page more efficiently.

Using headings correctly will also help search engines to know what is important on the page. There are several tutorials available on YouTube about headings and search engine optimisation.

Common mistakes with headings

Using formatted text instead of headings

In this example, the document on the left appears to use headings; however, the text has been formatted to look like headings. This means to a screen reader, it has no structural information and looks like a mass of text on the right.

Using headings for things that arn’t headings

It’s quite common on web pages for the first paragraph of an article to be in a larger font, and bolder than the rest of the body text. However, in this case, <h2> level heading has been used to achieve this. If you need to format a paragraph, then this should be done with the stylesheet for the web page

Using Headings out of Order

The headings should be in a hierarchical order but in this case, we can see that <h4> comes after <h1>, we’ve got <h2>, but then <h3> is missing.

Ways to check your headings

• Headings Map for Firefox – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/headingsmap
• WAVE Accessibility Extension – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/wave-accessibility-tool/
• NVDA screen reader – Windows – https://www.nvaccess.org/download/
• VoiceOver screen reader for mac – Available from system preferences > accessibility > VoiceOver