/documentation/android_access/basics.html
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1<!-- Copyright 2010 Google Inc. 2 Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); 3 you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. 4 You may obtain a copy of the License at 5 6 http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0 7 8 Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software 9 distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, 10 WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. 11 See the License for the specific language governing permissions and 12 limitations under the License. --> 13 14<html> 15<head> 16<title>Accessibility basics - Android Accessibility</title> 17<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css"> 18</head> 19 20<body> 21<div id="main_body"> 22 23<h1>Accessibility Basics</h1> 24 25<div class="nav"> 26<div class="nav_back"><a href="enabling.html">Previous: Enabling 27accessibility</a></div> 28<div class="nav_up"><a href="index.html">Up: Android Accessibility</a></div> 29<div class="nav_next"><a href="services.html">Next: Accessibility 30Services</a></div> 31</div> 32 33<p>Once you've enabled accessibility, you can start using your phone. This 34section describes some of the most common ways to interact with your device 35and explains some vocabulary.</p> 36 37<h2>Explore by touch</h2> 38 39<p>On devices running Android 4.0 and higher, you can touch your device's 40screen to hear the content under your finger spoken aloud. To activate an item, 41for example to click a button, tap the screen once after exploring the item. 42Or, to activate an item without exploring it first, simply double-tap the 43item.</p> 44 45<h3>Scrolling</h3> 46 47<p>When you explore content that extends beyond the screen and can be scrolled, 48your device will beep with a rising tone. To scroll content, place two fingers 49on the screen and move your fingers up or down. You will head ascending or 50descending tones as you scroll the list to let you know your relative position 51within the list. If you pause after scrolling a list, you will head a spoken 52description of your absolute position within the list.</p> 53 54<h2>Directional Pad Navigation</h2> 55 56<p>On devices with a hardware d-pad or arrow keys, you can typically navigate 57without needing to use the touch screen. This navigation is available to all 58users and does not require Accessibility to be enabled. Enabling Accessibility 59will provide you with speech feedback to assist in navigation if you cannot see 60the screen.</p> 61<p>The type of directional controller varies by phone, but many phones have 62one of the following: a clickable trackball, arrow keys, or a directional pad. 63On phones without any hardware directional controls, you can download the 64Eyes-Free Keyboard from Android Market to obtain an on-screen directional pad. 65All of these controllers allow you to move in 4 directions, and click to 66select items on the screen. Depending on what accessibility applications 67you've enabled, you'll get speech, sound, and haptic (vibrational) feedback to 68tell you what you've selected and what's happening on your phone.</p> 69<p>There are three other keys that you will use frequently. Make sure you 70know where these keys are on your phone:</p> 71 72<ul> 73 74 <li>The <strong>Home</strong> button will take you to the home screen, 75 where you can launch applications, check notifications, and much more. While 76 Android comes with a home screen that's reasonably accessible, you can 77 download alternative apps to use as your home screen including one designed 78 specifically for eyes-free use. See <a href="customizing.html"> the section 79 on customizing</a> for more details. In addition, if you press and hold 80 (long press) the Home key, it will bring up a window with shortcuts to 81 recently opened apps.</li> 82 83 <li>The <strong>Back</strong> button will take you back to the previous 84 screen, whether in the same app or a different app. As an example, if you're 85 reading an email, pressing Back might take you to your Inbox, pressing Back 86 again might take you to your list of mailboxes, and pressing Back yet again 87 might take you to your home screen. You can use Back to close most dialogs or 88 exit most screens that are causing you problems.</li> 89 90 <li>The <strong>Menu</strong> button opens a menu specific to the current 91 screen. Quite a bit of Android functionality which relies on the touch screen 92 is also accessible through the menu button, so be sure to check for it. 93 Menus are usually two-dimensional, so use the arrows to move up, down, left 94 and right to find all of the options in the menu, and click one if you want. 95 To close a menu, press Back.</li> 96</ul> 97 98<h3>Long Press</h3> 99<p>An important navigation mechanism in Android is called a <strong>long 100press</strong>. You perform a long press by pressing and holding down a 101physical key or touch (capacitive) button. If the long press is successful, the 102phone will provide some physical feedback such as vibration, and the long press 103action will take place.</p> 104 105<p>You can use a long press to open menus that are specific to the active 106item - think of it like opening a context menu on a PC. For example, performing a long press on a song in the Music player application in 107Android 2.2 will open a menu that allows you to add or remove it from a 108playlist. To perform a long press that opens a context menu, press and hold the 109select key or the trackball.</p> 110 111<p>As described earlier, you can long press the Home key to bring up 112a window with shortcuts to recent apps. Long pressing the Search key will 113activate Voice Search.</p> 114 115<h2>The home screen</h2> 116 117<h3>Settings</h3> 118The Android settings are available as a menu option on the home screen 119(accessed by pressing the menu button while on the home screen). There 120are many configuration options available here. The following are accessibility 121related options: 122 123<ul> 124 <li><strong>Accessibility</strong> Used to enable and disable basic 125 accessibility settings. See <a href="enabling.html">the enabling 126 accessibility section</a> for details. 127 </li> 128 129 <li><strong>Language & input</strong> (Android 4.0 and higher) or 130 <strong>Voice Input & Output</strong> controls global 131 text-to-speech settings, including speech rate and language.</li> 132 133 <li><strong>Sound (or Sound & display)</strong> Configure sounds and 134 vibrations (haptic feedback).</li> 135 136</ul> 137 138<h3>Notifications</h3> 139<p>Notifications are the primary way Android communicates messages to you 140without interrupting what you are currently doing. For example, a notification 141might tell you that you have new mail, a new text message, or a low battery 142warning. Any app can post a notification.</p> 143 144<p>When you have TalkBack or another accessibility service running, it will 145speak the notification when it first appears. Additionally, at any point in 146time you can open the notifications panel from the home screen menu option to 147review all of your notifications. Most notifications are clickable - when 148clicked they will take you directly to the message or application in question 149or tell you more information about the warning.</p> 150 151<h3>Application launcher</h3> 152<p>An important function of the home screen is provide access to installed 153applications. From the home screen, select "All Applications". This will open 154a screen with a list of all installed applications.</p> 155<p>Note that this view is two-dimensional, with four apps per row. In order 156to find all of your apps, you'll need to explore all four apps in each 157horizontal row. If you find this annoying, you can install an alternate home 158screen or app launcher, such as the Eyes-Free shell. See <a 159 href="customizing.html">the section on customizing</a> for more details.</p> 160 161<h2>The Lock Screen</h2> 162 163<p>When the phone goes to sleep, the screen is automatically locked. This means 164that the screen is off and the phone doesn't accept user input. Depending 165on your display settings, your screen might go to sleep after a specified 166timeout, and soon afterward the phone will lock. You can also force your 167screen to turn off and the phone to lock by pressing the power button. 168 169By default, once your screen is locked, accessibility services such as 170TalkBack will not give you feedback. This preference may be changed in your 171screen reader's settings page.</p> 172 173<p>Unlocking a phone requires two steps: you need to turn on the screen, 174and then unlock the phone. In order to turn on the screen, you need to push 175the power button (on some phone models such as the Droid, the enter key 176will also turn on the screen).</p> 177 178<p>Once the screen is on, unlocking the phone usually requires a touch screen 179gesture, but this may vary depending on manufacturer customizations. To perform 180the gesture on a standard Android phone:</p> 181<ol> 182 <li>Hold the screen in portrait mode.</li> 183 <li>Press your finger on the lower left side of the screen. If you have 184 KickBack enabled, you should get a quick vibration when you are in the correct 185 place.</li> 186 <li>Swipe your finger all the way across the screen to the right. With 187 KickBack, you will get another haptic vibration when the phone successfully 188 unlocks.</li> 189</ol> 190<p>To practice this gesture, press the power button to turn the screen off 191and lock the phone - TalkBack will say "Screen Off". Press the power button a 192second time to turn the screen back on. It will now be waiting for you to unlock it.</p> 193<p>You can also mute the ringer volume from the lock screen. To mute the ringer 194volume, perform the unlocking gesture but swipe from right to left instead of 195from left to right. Please note that muting the ringer volume will not mute 196speech feedback for accessibility.</p> 197<p>If you don't like having to swipe to unlock your phone, you can disable 198this behavior or choose a different unlocking strategy. See <a 199 href="customizing.html">the section on customizing</a> for more details.</p> 200 201<h2>Phone calls</h2> 202 203<p>To answer a phone call on most phones, you must swipe from left to right, 204just like the unlocking gesture described above. To decline a call, press 205the power button or perform the unlocking gesture in reverse from right to 206left.</p> 207<p>A few phones, like the HTC G1 and LG Ally, have physical Call Start and 208Call End buttons which can be used instead of the gestures.</p> 209<p>To end a call on a phone without a physical button, you must push a 210button on the touch-screen. The button is accessible, so you can use your 211directional controls to find and click the button. However, it can be 212challenging to do this quickly.</p> 213<ul> 214 <li>If you have Android 2.2 or later, there is a checkbox in the 215 Accessibility settings that allows the power button to hang up calls. 216 <li>If you have Android 2.1 or earlier and do not want to use the directional 217 pad to locate the end call button, you can try to learn where to 218 press the touch-screen: the button is in the center, towards the bottom. Note 219 that when you hold the phone near your ear, the screen turns off. You may 220 need to wait a second after moving the phone away to be able to press the 221 button. 222</ul> 223<p>Everything else about phone calls is already accessible if your phone has 224a keyboard: dialing, editing contacts, etc.</p> 225 226<h2>Conclusion</h2> 227<p>Now you know everything you need to start using your phone! The rest of 228this guide will go into much more detail about some common things you might want 229to do with your phone, and how to customize your experience to work just right 230for you.</p> 231<p>At this point, many of your questions may not be specific to 232accessibility. If you want to learn how to make phone calls, synchronize your 233contacts, play music, or more, you don't need a special guide for accessibility. 234You can just read the manual that came with your phone, or search the Internet 235for general advice on using Android. In many cases, your experience may not be 236very different than the experience for any other user.</p> 237 238<div class="nav"> 239<div class="nav_back"><a href="enabling.html">Previous: Enabling 240accessibility</a></div> 241<div class="nav_up"><a href="index.html">Up: Android Accessibility</a></div> 242<div class="nav_next"><a href="services.html">Next: Accessibility 243Services</a></div> 244</div> 245 246</div> 247</body> 248</html>