[Home-on-the-range] braille input on you riPhone

[Stanzel, Susan - FSA, Kansas City, MO]

Good morning Everyone,

I didn't know if this list would take an attachment so please find a document below. Please note the Braille option will not show up in the rotor unless you are in an edit field.

Susie

An Introduction To Braille Screen Input On iOS 8

Submitted by mehgcap on 17 September, 2014 - 13:58 and last modified on 19 September, 2014 - 21:12

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Before We Begin

In iOS8, you can write braille on your iOS device, similar to apps like MBraille or Braille Touch. The difference is that this is global, available anywhere you have a keyboard. No switching apps and pasting text, you simply use braille instead of the on-screen keyboard. If you prefer to listen, hyou can hear an audio demonstration of braille input in iOS8 here (http://www.applevis.com/podcast/episodes/new-ios-8-braille-screen-input).

While this new braille input system is a wonderful feature, it does have a few caveats you need to know about. Note that I assume you are already familiar with braille, and the basic VoiceOver gestures of swiping with one or more fingers and double tapping to activate items.

Setting It Up

When you first get iOS8, braille will not be enabled. You can easily enable it, though: open the Settings app, go to General, then Accessibility, then VoiceOver, then Rotor. Find the "Braille screen input" option and double tap to select it (if it is already selected for some reason, simply leave it alone). In the initial release of iOS8, this option is the very last one in the list. Once it is selected, you are set to start using braille input.

Usage

To use the braille keyboard, you must be on the home screen or editing a text field. If either of these is true, turn your rotor to "braille screen input", which is nearly always just to the right of your current rotor selection. Your device will switch to landscape mode if it is in portrait, and you can begin.

you will be told the input mode (see below), the type of braille in use (6 dot, 8 dot, or contracted), and the fact that your device is now in landscape mode. If you have VoiceOver set to speak hints, which is the default setting, you are also told which side your Home button is now on and "to calibrate braille dots, place the first three fingers of first your left hand, then your right, on the screen." This calibration step is not necessary - you can begin brailling straight away. To be honest, I have not yet discovered what calibration does, as there seems to be no difference if I calibrate or go right to typing. I have also found that VoiceOver soon stops speaking this calibration message, but that, by quickly pressing dots 4 5 6, then dots 1 2 3, you can calibrate at any time. Again, though, I haven't worked out just what purpose calibration serves.

If the iOS device is relatively flat, such as on a table, it will default to "tabletop mode", where the dots are laid out in a sort of flattened V shape. If it is closer to being on its side, it will be in "screen away mode", with the dots along the two shorter edges of the screen. In this mode, hold your device with your thumbs on top, near the volume buttons, your pinkies on the opposite side, and your hands curved so the other three fingers of each hand rest on the screen, perpendicular to the long edges.

In either mode, your index fingers are dots 1 and 4, your middle fingers are 2 and 5, and your ring fingers are 3 and 6. Some people may want to flip the dots as MBraille allows, so 1 and 4 are on the bottom instead of the top. At this time, though, that is not possible.

Here are the gestures you can use while in braille input mode:

*           one-finger swipe right: space

*           one-finger swipe left: delete most recent character (you cannot swipe left and hold to keep deleting)

*           one-finger swipe up/down: access typing suggestions

*           two-finger swipe right: new line

*           three finger swipe left/right: toggle between contracted and uncontracted (called "six dot") braille (on iPads, eight dot braille is also an option)

*           hold a finger on the screen: enter "explore mode", where you can move a finger around to find the different dots' positions

Finding Apps With Braille

Similar to the handwriting feature introduced in iOS7, you can use braille to search for apps. On any home screen, rotor to braille and begin typing the name of the app you want. As you type, VoiceOver will announce how many matches it has found. To browse them, flick up or down with a finger, then flick right with two fingers (the "enter" gesture) to open an app once you hear it.

Note that the three-finger swipe left or right to change input grade does not work here. As far as I've been able to tell, you are in six-dot entry by default and cannot change that.

Edit Fields

As mentioned, braille input can be used anywhere an on-screen keyboard is present. However, the braille keyboard does not include any editing commands except the single-character delete, nor does it offer commands to review what you have written. For both of these functions, use the rotor to exit braille input mode, then the normal VoiceOver gestures to review, select, or edit your text.

The suggestions you get as you type are not the same as the suggestions offered by iOS8's new predictive typing feature. Instead, they are based, as far as I can tell, on common braille mistakes. For instance, if you type "jug", one suggestion might be "dug", since j and d are one dot different. This is both good and bad: it is nice to be able to quickly select the word you meant if you made a mistake instead of deleting the whole thing, but auto-complete would also be handy so you could fill longer words in faster.

Remember that braille is only one option. There is nothing stopping you from writing something in braille, then switching back to the on-screen keyboard for a while. This may become essential if you want to access Emoji, or if there is a symbol you cannot figure out how to type in braille. It may also prove useful to take advantage of the afore mentioned auto-complete feature - you might find that faster than braille in some instances. The point is that you can use braille alongside, not instead of, on-screen keyboards if you like.

Conclusion

Braille input seems to work well. Spaces are not always entered, which can get rather annoying, but slightly exaggerating the one-finger flick right seems to help with this. Aside from that, having braille input available anywhere is a truly wonderful addition to iOS; use it for emails, your passcode, passwords, texts, searches... Anywhere you can type text, you can choose to do so in braille.






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