iOS devices are an excellent choice for visually impaired users. They’re portable, they’re fully self-contained and are designed to be used without external peripherals, and the iOS user experience is very functionally concise and goal-oriented. iOS will not present a proliferation of windows, toolbars and minuscule user interface elements. For the most part, they’re comprehensible, focused, and as intuitive as possible. These are all ideal qualities for accessible software, and indeed for software in general.

The question then becomes how we, as developers, can ensure that our applications are as accessible as possible, and that VoiceOver can provide the best assistance. The good news is that it’s incredibly easy to add accessibility support to your application (there’s no bad news, incidentally). The reality of adding accessibility support to your app is that:

About 80% of your app is probably accessible already, via the built-in VoiceOver support in UIKit.

You can probably boost that to around 95% simply by spending a few minutes in Interface Builder, without writing a single line of code.

And you can very likely reach 100% accessibility support via implementing some incredibly trivial methods, which will also take you just a few minutes.

Adding robust accessibility support is exceptionally easy. You don’t need to learn much, and it won’t take much time at all. You can very likely begin and complete your app’s accessibility support the same day. Before we get into the details, I want to briefly describe how VoiceOver actually works, in case you’ve never used it.

keyboard navigable AJAX widgets for better usability and accessibility

Low cost usability testing

Glenda Watson Hyatt shares her experiences living with cerebral palsy to motivate and inspire others to think about how they perceive their own situation and their own world around them. She does all this by typing with only her left thumb!