
When my finest pal had an occipital stroke shortly earlier than Christmas, one of many first issues they talked about once they acquired out of the hospital was how they had been having bother utilizing their cellphone. They didn’t know on the time concerning the multitude of iPhone accessibility settings for stroke and neurological imaginative and prescient loss which can be out there on their system, and I’ve since obtained a number of messages about how a lot simpler it’s for them to kind and use their system independently now that we’ve enabled these settings. Here’s a record of iPhone accessibility settings for stroke and neurological imaginative and prescient loss that I enabled for my finest pal after their stroke, which spotlight a number of methods to make iPhone simpler to see. Except in any other case famous, all of those settings are additionally out there on iPad.
Further background
Each particular person’s expertise with stroke and stroke restoration is completely different, and that is under no circumstances an exhaustive record of all potential accessibility settings for stroke. My finest pal had a stroke of their occipital lobe, which has affected how they entry visible info, use textual content messaging, and likewise contributed to elevated visible/cognitive fatigue— they particularly requested me to put in writing a put up about how I arrange their iPhone for stroke restoration in order that they will refer again to it later. It’s additionally price noting they’re comfy with utilizing know-how, didn’t have any pre-existing imaginative and prescient loss or recognized danger components previous to having a stroke, and I personally configured these settings for them with their enter in order that they didn’t should scroll via a number of menus.
Lots of the accessibility settings I chosen for them are additionally used for folks with neurological visible impairment and cerebral/cortical visible impairment (CVI), which encompasses a number of traits of imaginative and prescient loss that transcend visible acuity.
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Hover Textual content/Hover Typing
On this context, Hover Textual content is an accessibility characteristic out there for iPad, Mac, and Apple TV units that enlarges content material positioned beneath the pointer in a separate window and applies a constant font type, colour, and measurement to chose textual content. Hover Textual content requires customers to attach a mouse/trackpad and keyboard for iPad and Mac, and is offered in iOS 16 and later. Whereas Hover Textual content is basically useful in some contexts, my finest pal discovered Hover Typing to be rather more helpful.
Hover Typing
Hover Typing is one other setting within the Hover Textual content accessibility menu that enlarges textual content that’s being typed in a textbox utilizing the identical show settings as Hover Textual content. It doesn’t require an exterior keyboard or cursor, and is routinely activated at any time when a consumer is typing one thing on their system, like a textual content message, electronic mail, username on a login display, or comparable. Hover Typing is offered in iOS 18 and above.
Show Mode
When utilizing Hover Typing, enlarged textual content is displayed in a window exterior of the textual content insertion discipline, just like a display magnifier. Show mode choices for Hover Typing embrace:
- Docked to keyboard. Enabled by default, the Hover Typing window seems above the keyboard and was the choice most popular by my finest pal.
- Prime of display, centered.
- Inline— textual content shall be displayed in the identical place because the cursor.
- Backside of display, centered.
FONT
Textual content displayed within the Hover Textual content window will be displayed in a constant font type, which will be chosen from the Font menu and consists of previews of what a font seems like. Some examples of decisions that will work nicely for customers with print disabilities embrace Arial, Chalkboard, Helvetica, and Verdana. My finest pal most popular the daring Arial font.
SIZE
Hover Textual content will routinely enlarge textual content in a constant measurement, which is similar measurement because the system font by default. There are 12 choices for font measurement that may be adjusted with the slider.
COLORS
Hover Textual content and Hover Typing presents a number of choices for customizing how textual content content material is displayed throughout the window view, together with:
- Textual content colour
- Insertion level colour
- Background colour
- Border colour
- Misspelled phrase colour
- Autocorrected phrase colour
Customers can choose colours from a grid, spectrum, or RGB/HEX values, in addition to regulate the opacity of particular person colours.
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DISPLAY AND TEXT SIZE
BOLD TEXT
Daring textual content makes all textual content that makes use of Dynamic Sort thicker/heavier, which can assist with figuring out letters extra simply for those who have bother studying.
LARGER TEXT
To make it simpler to learn textual content with out straining eyes (which will be painful or result in fatigue), I enabled bigger textual content sizes and moved the slider to the 8 measurement, which elevated the scale of the textual content on the keyboard and in all purposes. In the event that they wished a bigger or smaller font measurement in a selected utility, this could possibly be configured within the Management Middle (extra on that later).
BUTTON SHAPES
The button shapes characteristic places backgrounds on buttons, so they’re excessive distinction and due to this fact simpler to note. It could actually finest be described as a delicate, shaded impact with simple to tell apart shapes. The goal space can also be massive, which means the buttons are simpler to press.
REDUCE TRANSPARENCY/INCREASE CONTRAST
To make it simpler to see purposes on the House Display and navigate different interfaces, I turned on scale back transparency/improve distinction to extend colour distinction between app foreground and background colours in addition to take away clear colour results and blurry backgrounds that may contribute to eye pressure.
INVERT COLORS/Good Invert
Invert colours (often known as inverted show or invert) is a colour mode/colour filter that adjustments a light-colored show with darkish textual content to a dark-colored show with gentle textual content. iPhone and iPad supply two choices to invert colours, often called Good Invert and Basic Invert. Good Invert doesn’t invert or change the colours of images, pictures, movies, icons, or current interfaces already in darkish mode. Basic Invert will use a full colour inversion, altering all show colours for content material and displaying “darkish mode” content material in a light-weight colour palette.
Since I’m regularly sending them cat photos and don’t wish to distort how these look, my finest pal has Good Invert enabled on their iPhone proper now, which they’ve stated helps them tremendously after their stroke as a result of it gives extra distinction and a much less complicated colour palette than darkish mode.
COLOR FILTER
Colour filters are instruments that may assist scale back eye pressure from screens by lowering the damaging impact of blue gentle and/or adjusting how colours are displayed on a display for a extra comfy viewing expertise. Colour filters can change how particular colours are displayed on a display (useful for colorblindness or colour deficiencies) or apply a delicate tint to a show, just like laptop glasses or a display protector. This can be useful for individuals who have had a stroke and wish to make colours much less intense, or make it simpler to view screens for longer intervals of time.
For my finest pal, I made a decision to make use of the Colour Tint setting to configure a crimson colour at 7% depth, which applies a delicate heat hue to the display and acts just like a blue gentle filter. I’ve this enabled along side Good Invert to assist with lowering vivid gentle or tremendous vivid colours, which has been useful for managing eye pressure.
REDUCE WHITE POINT
Lowering white level lessens the depth of vivid white gentle, which will be useful for lowering glare and the depth of tremendous vivid colours. It is a tremendous useful accessibility setting for stroke as a result of some folks should still be delicate to vivid or intense gentle, or choose a dimmer display. My finest pal has their white level set at 80% as they discovered this to be essentially the most comfy possibility, although different individuals who I’ve labored with personally most popular decrease white level values (40%-60%).
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MOTION
REDUCE MOTION
Movement sensitivity or feeling disoriented when utilizing screens has been a problem for my pal, so we determined to allow scale back movement and like cross-fade transitions to keep away from the disorienting parallax impact to attenuate the animations on their display.
AUTO-PLAY
I turned off auto-play for animated pictures, message results, and video previews to keep away from shock flashing lights or strobing content material, which will be disorienting or startling if the consumer has no thought the place it’s coming from. That is particularly useful for group chats and looking social media feeds.
DIM FLASHING LIGHTS
Shiny and flashing lights will be painful to take a look at proper now, and enabling this accessibility setting for stroke is useful for avoiding surprising flashing lights. With this setting enabled, video content material that depicts repeated flashing or strobing lights is routinely dimmed to scale back the depth of the lights.
Favor non-blinking cursor
To assist decrease the quantity of animations on the display, a non-blinking cursor will be enabled for typing.
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SPOKEN CONTENT
For customers that profit from having textual content learn loud however not essentially the entire time, text-to-speech instruments like Converse Choice/Spoken Content material will be useful for listening to textual content learn out loud. My finest pal most popular Converse Choice, which is activated by long-pressing on textual content and deciding on the Converse button as an alternative of enabling Converse Display, which reads all the things on the display from left to proper and high to backside. Each Converse Display and Converse Choice will be enabled concurrently.
Spotlight Content material
To make it simpler to observe together with textual content, I personalized Converse Choice to spotlight phrases and sentences (although customers can choose one or the opposite). The Sentence Spotlight type is about to underline to establish what space of textual content is being learn out loud. I additionally enabled word-level highlighting in Spotlight Colours to assist with monitoring, and my finest pal chosen the purple colour. The default colour was used for sentences.
Voices
My finest pal didn’t have any curiosity in customizing their text-to-speech voice for Converse Choice, although there are a number of choices for customizing the voice used in addition to the speed, velocity, pitch, and quantity. Different individuals who I’ve labored with which have had strokes previously most popular the Australian voices over the American choices as a result of they most popular how phrases had been enunciated with an Australian accent.
Talking fee
To make it simpler to observe together with textual content as it’s learn out loud, choose a slower talking fee to make it simpler to observe together with phrases as they’re learn out loud. My finest pal most popular the 45% talking fee.
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Contact
My finest pal seen that they stored shaking their iPhone accidentally and activating settings unintentionally, however can nonetheless entry their cellphone with a contact display and hasn’t wanted to allow voice management, change entry, or eye monitoring following their stroke, although these settings will be useful for others.
AssistiveTouch
AssistiveTouch makes it simpler to entry contact display units by making a floating “button” that seems on the display always that gives fast entry to settings, shortcuts, and different system options. Customers can customise the top-level menu to offer entry to system instruments, accessibility options, iOS shortcuts, scroll gestures, and different contact lodging. For my finest pal, their AssistiveTouch menu at the moment consists of the next gadgets:
- Flashlight
- Management Middle
- Siri
- Background sounds
- App switcher
- House
In the event that they had been , I’d have thought of including one other shortcut for Converse Display so that they didn’t have to make use of the swiping gesture, although this wasn’t one thing they wished.
Shake to undo
I seen they had been shaking their iPhone unintentionally when holding it, so we turned off shake to undo to assist with lowering animations and to lower the frequency of the undo alert showing.
Audio & Visible: Background Sounds
To assist with cognitive fatigue and rest, my finest pal has been listening to ocean sounds by discovering movies on YouTube. They had been excited to search out out there may be another choice to show their iPhone into a conveyable sound machine that doesn’t contain having to seek for a video or having web entry known as Background Sounds, which can be utilized whereas the system is locked or media is taking part in if desired.
Choices for Background Sounds on iPhone and iPad embrace:
- Balanced noise
- Shiny noise
- Darkish noise
- Ocean
- Rain
- Stream
- Night time
- Hearth
As a facet word, my finest pal actually disliked the “vivid noise” possibility and was very irritated when listening to it. I strongly advocate experimenting with completely different configurations as some noises could sound extra disagreeable when recovering from a stroke.
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PER-APP SETTINGS
Beginning in iOS 15, customers can customise accessibility settings for particular person apps within the Per-App Settings menu, positioned within the Settings app. This may be accessed by opening Settings > Accessibility > Per-App Settings, which is positioned within the Common sub-section of the Accessibility menu. These accessibility settings shall be enabled routinely when the consumer opens the appliance. If no settings are configured, the accessibility settings which can be at the moment enabled on the system shall be displayed by default.
iPadOS and iOS at the moment supply the next choices for customizing per-app accessibility settings:
- Daring Textual content
- Bigger Textual content (font measurement)
- Button Shapes
- On/Off Labels
- Cut back Transparency
- Enhance Distinction
- Differentiate With out Colour
- Favor Horizontal Textual content
- Good Invert
- Cut back Movement
- Favor Cross-Fade Transitions
- Favor Non-Blinking Cursor
- Auto-Play Animated Photographs
- Auto-Play Video Previews
Per-App Settings routinely shows a number of purposes within the App Customization menu, and customers can configure settings for added purposes by deciding on Add App. Alternatively, customers can even configure the default settings for the House Display & App Library utilizing this menu.
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ADDITIONAL iPhone ACCESSIBILITY SETTINGS FOR Stroke
Whereas these aren’t configured within the Settings menu, there are a number of different accessibility settings out there for iPhone and iPad that may make it simpler to entry info after a stroke or with neurological visible impairment, together with:
Assistive Entry
Assistive Entry gives a simplified show and interface for accessing purposes, which will be useful for customers recovering from stroke or that hate visually complicated interfaces. With Assistive Entry, purposes are displayed as a grid or record view and have a simplified interface that prioritize “core” options like sending messages or making calls with out having numerous visible complexity. Customers can even add different purposes to Assistive Entry which can be put in on the system.
To allow Assistive Entry, customers might want to have a PIN to show it on/off or customise settings.
SAFARI READING VIEW
Safari Studying View is a built-in simplified studying show that’s constructed into the Safari internet browser. With a simplified studying show, textual content content material is displayed with a constant font measurement, font type, and background colour, no matter how the content material is displayed on the unique web site. This can assist to eradicate visible litter reminiscent of advertisements, multi-column layouts, ornamental pictures, and animations, in addition to present customers with the choice to have textual content learn out loud. Studying View in Safari will be launched routinely for particular web sites or weblog posts/articles from web sites, and textual content will be additional enlarged with pinch-to-zoom as nicely.
To allow Studying View in Safari, choose the Studying View icon within the deal with bar, which seems like a lowercase and uppercase A or a sequence of rectangles. Lengthy-press on the icon to customise the font measurement, font, and background colour. Choose Hearken to Web page to listen to the content material learn out loud in a synthesized voice.
Studying View presents twelve font sizes, 9 fonts (with a mixture of sans serif and serif), and 4 background colours (white, sepia, darkish grey, and black). Hearken to Web page has extra restricted customization choices, supporting a studying fee of as much as 2x velocity, elevated/decreased in increments of 0.25x.
Accessibility Shortcut
Accessibility Shortcut gives extra accessibility settings that may be turned on/off utilizing both the Management Middle or by triple-clicking a button shortcut (both the highest button, facet button, or house button relying on the system mannequin). These accessibility settings will stay on till the consumer turns them off, and they won’t be turned on/off routinely when opening an utility.
iPadOS and iOS at the moment supply the next choices for the Accessibility Shortcut:
- Assistive Entry
- Background Sounds
- AssistiveTouch
- Basic Invert
- Colour Filters
- Dim Flashing Lights
- Eye Monitoring
- Full Keyboard Entry
- Guided Entry
- Hover Textual content
- Hover Typing
- Enhance Distinction
- Left/Proper Stability
- Reside Captions
- Reside Recognition
- Reside Speech
- Magnifier
- Cut back Movement
- Cut back Transparency
- Cut back White Level
- Good Invert
- Converse Display
- Change Management
- Automobile Movement Controls
- Voice Management
- VoiceOver
- Zoom
If a couple of accessibility characteristic is added, every characteristic shall be displayed in an inventory when the Accessibility Shortcut is activated, so the consumer can select the characteristic they wish to entry.
Management Middle
Management Middle gives fast entry to system options and accessibility settings and will be opened inside any utility by swiping down from the highest proper nook of the system display. Customers can customise the show of Management Middle by opening the Settings app and deciding on the Management Middle menu. From there, customers can add, take away, or customise which settings they want to show. In iOS 18, some accessibility settings at the moment are out there as choices within the default Management Middle menu, which has eight rounded icons on the backside of the menu.
The default Management Middle menu presents the next accessibility settings:
- Accessibility Shortcuts (listed as plural, see earlier part)
- Basic Invert (iOS 18)
- Colour Filters (iOS 18)
- Darkish Mode
- Dim Flashing Lights (iOS 18)
- Guided Entry
- Listening to
- Hover Textual content (iOS 18)
- Hover Typing (iOS 18)
- Enhance Distinction (iOS 18)
- Reside Recognition (iOS 18)
- Magnifier
- Music Recognition
- Cut back Movement (iOS 18)
- Cut back Transparency (iOS 18)
- Cut back White Level (iOS 18)
- Good Invert (iOS 18)
- Converse Display (iOS 18)
- Sound Recognition
- Textual content Dimension (customizable for particular person apps with a slider)
- Automobile Movement (iOS 18)
- VoiceOver (iOS 18)
- Zoom (iOS 18)
Whereas some settings will be personalized for particular person purposes, most settings will stay on till the consumer turns them off once more.
Notifications
My finest pal was overwhelmed by the notification badges and the fixed stream of notifications on their iPhone, so we turned off as many badge notification types as we may discover and turned off notifications for a number of different apps as nicely to scale back visible litter and overwhelm.
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Extra sources on iPad and iPhone accessibility settings for stroke and neurological imaginative and prescient loss
- Having a well-organized House Display can go a good distance in lowering visible litter— be taught extra in How To Arrange Apps On iPad With Low Imaginative and prescient
- One other solution to scale back visible litter is to decide on a wallpaper or background that’s not visually complicated, reminiscent of stable colours. That is additionally useful if Invert Colours is enabled, since this will typically distort how wallpapers look.
- To make it simpler to find units, I like to recommend selecting a excessive distinction cellphone case that pops in opposition to frequent surfaces like tables and purses, be taught extra in Mainstream Expertise and Low Imaginative and prescient: Covers and Circumstances
- In case they’ve to return to the hospital once more, one other useful characteristic to configure is their emergency medical profile so that they have fast entry to an inventory of their medicines. Study extra in How To Retailer Emergency Medical Info For Android and iOS