To begin with, blindness is a spectrum and not an on/off switch. That means blind people can still often see something, even if it’s not clear or bright etc. Accessibility tech for touch screens is often just making the displayed content larger or higher contrast, as well as screen reader capabilities, combined with gestures, hotspots, there’s definitely some capability for use of a touchscreen while vision is impaired
Visually impaired can use high contrast, large text for easier reading. More typically an equipment made accessible for people with visual impairments and blindess would have tactile buttons (often with Braille) and audio prompts.
Screens that can produce raised Braille text anywhere are rather uncommon.
My dad is completely blind. In the past you’re correct that it would have been tactile, but they’ve gone to touch screens pretty universally. I can’t speak to android, but iPhones have really good accessibility settings. For the fully blind they have a setup with a screen reader where you can tap the screen and it says what’s in that section then you tap it again to actually click it. The more common way (at least for him) of using it is to drag your finger around the screen - each section will give haptic feedback and read it off every time your finger enters a new section.
Theuch bigger problem is smaller websites and apps that don’t bother going through the extra effort to define these sections in such a way that the iPhone can tell what it’s supposed to be reading or even where the section really is.
Fully blind people will need to use some sort of text-to-speech software. Partially blind / low vision people can often get by with high contrast and larger text.
Ok so less stupid I hope, how do blind folks use touch screen devices? Do they use an audio or braille reader?
To begin with, blindness is a spectrum and not an on/off switch. That means blind people can still often see something, even if it’s not clear or bright etc. Accessibility tech for touch screens is often just making the displayed content larger or higher contrast, as well as screen reader capabilities, combined with gestures, hotspots, there’s definitely some capability for use of a touchscreen while vision is impaired
Visually impaired can use high contrast, large text for easier reading. More typically an equipment made accessible for people with visual impairments and blindess would have tactile buttons (often with Braille) and audio prompts.
Screens that can produce raised Braille text anywhere are rather uncommon.
My dad is completely blind. In the past you’re correct that it would have been tactile, but they’ve gone to touch screens pretty universally. I can’t speak to android, but iPhones have really good accessibility settings. For the fully blind they have a setup with a screen reader where you can tap the screen and it says what’s in that section then you tap it again to actually click it. The more common way (at least for him) of using it is to drag your finger around the screen - each section will give haptic feedback and read it off every time your finger enters a new section.
Theuch bigger problem is smaller websites and apps that don’t bother going through the extra effort to define these sections in such a way that the iPhone can tell what it’s supposed to be reading or even where the section really is.
Fully blind people will need to use some sort of text-to-speech software. Partially blind / low vision people can often get by with high contrast and larger text.
Also, dumbphones.