Doug Smith
Doug Smith

Reputation: 29316

What makes an element accessible? And why are tap gestures less accessible than UIButtons? How do I fix it?

Brent Simmons wrote in a blog post that tap gesture recognizers, presumably on a UIView, are less accessible than UIButtons. I'm trying to learn my way around making my app accessible, and I was curious if anyone could clarify what makes that less accessible than a UIButton, and what makes an element "accessible" to begin with?

For more customizability I was planning to build a button comprised of a UIView and tap gesture recognizers with some subviews, but now I'm not so sure. Is it possible to make a UIView as accessible as a UIButton?

Upvotes: 5

Views: 2007

Answers (1)

Mundi
Mundi

Reputation: 80265

Accessible in this context most likely refers to UI elements that can be used using Apple's accessibility features, such as VoiceOver (see example below).

For example, a visually impaired person will not be able to see your view or subviews, or buttons for that matter; but the accessibility software "VoiceOver" built into every iOS device will read to her/him the kind of object and its title, something like "Button: Continue" (if the button title is "Continue").

You can see that most likely the tap gesture recognizer will not be read by VoiceOver and thus be less "accessible".

Upvotes: 3

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