Useful iPhone accessibility settings for people with low vision or blindness

Smartphones have been mainstream technology for more than 15 years. In fact, for many of us, they’re essential technology, and we often hear our Clients say the same.

In this article, we’ll concentrate on accessibility settings for the iPhone, taking you through some of the features that our Clients find the most useful and giving a brief description of what they do.

It’s not an exhaustive list and it’s worth keeping in mind that not all these settings are necessarily available on older versions of the iPhone. We think it’s also important to mention that the best and most relevant accessibility settings for you will depend on your preferences, goals, level of vision, and other factors.

VoiceOver is Apple’s own screen reader technology, and is built into iPhones (as well as other Apple products). It’s been designed to describe people, objects, text, and more. The voice descriptions can help you navigate what’s on your screen, whether you’ve connected a keyboard to your phone or using the touchscreen.

It’s available in dozens of languages and lets you choose from numerous different voices.

To activate VoiceOver, go to ‘Settings’ > ‘Accessibility’ > ‘VoiceOver’ and toggle it on.

When you turn on Zoom in your iPhone settings, you’ll be able to magnify the screen, making it easier to read. You can choose to ‘zoom’ the whole screen or parts of it, and it’s been designed to work in combination with VoiceOver.

To activate Zoom, go to ‘Settings’ > ‘Accessibility’ > ‘Zoom’ and toggle it on. You can use gestures to magnify and de-magnify what you want to.

The Display and Text Size section of the Settings menu lets you adjust things like colour filters (ideal for people with colour blindness or conditions like Albinism) to change contrast, and to invert colours. You can also change transparency levels and the shape of buttons.

To change these settings, go to ‘Settings’ > ‘Accessibility’ > ‘Display & Text Size,’ and choose from a variety of useful options.

For many people, certain effects on smartphones can trigger motion sensitivity, strain eyes, and cause discomfort (even motion sickness). The Reduce Motion option reduces many of these effects.

To turn it on, go to ‘Settings’ > ‘Accessibility’ > ‘Motion’ and choose the Reduce Motion option.

Although Siri isn’t specifically designed for people with low vision or blindness, it can be a helpful aid, capable of making calls, sending messages, setting reminders, and more, using only voice commands.

If Siri isn’t enabled, you can turn it on by going to ‘Settings’ > ‘Siri & Search’ and choosing to turn it on.

By the way, Siri is one of the virtual assistants we discuss in our article on Assistive Technology for the home.

Like, Siri, the Face ID and Touch ID phone unlock options aren’t designed only for people with low vision or blindness, but may be useful as an alternative to entering a password.

How you turn these options on will depend on the model of iPhone you have.

Our Assistive Technology Specialists can help ensure that you’re getting the most out of your digital devices, including your iPhone.