Eyes-Free Review: Droid2 From MOT

Here is a quick eyes-free access overview of the MOT Droid2.

Hardware

1. The device has a pull-out keyboard, and the buttons are much more tactile than the original Droid.
2. The device also has dropped the hard-to-use D-Pad from the original Droid in favor of PC-style arrow keys.
3. There is once again no dedicated number row at the top.
4. The capacitive buttons on the front of the device appear in a different order from the original Droid --- with the device in portrait mode, reading left to right you have: Menu, home, back, and search.
5. In addition, MOT ships a voice search application on the device that is triggered by pressing a special microphone button -- it's worth learning the position of this key, since voice-search can be useful --- and more importantly, if you're relying on spoken feedback, hitting this button leads to the phone falling inexplicably silent.

Software

If you look under accessibility, you'll find an application called Voice Readouts from MOT. This appears to be a screenreader analogous to TalkBack, though in my experience, it did not produce spoken feedback in many instances. That said, this application collaborates well with TalkBack --- and after installing TalkBack from the Android Market (note: the Droid2 does not come with TalkBack bundled) -- you can activate both TalkBack and VoiceReadout for an optimal experience.

VoiceReadout appears to have a preliminary version of touch-exploration. With VoiceReadout active, a single tap speaks the item under the finger; a double-tap activates that item. Note that moving the finger around on the display does not appear to trigger touch exploration; also, touch exploration appears to be available in only some contexts.

Instances where touch exploration appears to be active

1. Settings application.
2. Portions of Android Market.

In general, touch exploration appears to be available in ListView.

In addition, the Droid2 also includes a low-vision accessibility tool called Zoom Mode ( look for it under Settings -> Accessibility ) this tool provides a magnification lens.

Summary

All in all, the Droid2 appears to be one of the better choices for eyes-free use from among the presently available crop of Android phones. Touch exploration, though preliminary, is nice to see on the platform, and the bundled low-vision magnification aid is a nice touch. Voice Readouts is also a great example of an Android accessibility service done right in that it co-exists peacefully with other screenreaders like TalkBack to provide an optimal end-user experience. To users not familiar with adaptive technologies in general, this might not sound like a big deal --- but users of PC screenreders have long been familiar with the need to have only one screenreader turned on. As we transition to modern platforms like Android, it's useful to remind ourselves that screenreaders can in fact co-exist, with each tool providing something useful to create an overall experience that is greater than the sum of the parts.

Welcoming Loquendo Susan To Android (FroYo)

Android 2.2 (AKA FroYo) introduces many platform enhancements, and one that I find particularly relevant is the ability to plug-in additional Text-To-Speech engines. What this means from an end-user point of view:

• Android comes with a set of built-in voices since Android 1.6 --- these are the Pico voices for English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.
• With the Text-ToSpeech plug-in mechanism in place, we can now add new engines to the platform.
• The first such add-on was ESpeak, which brings support for many of the world's languages.
• And now, vendors are able to sell high-quality add-on voices via the Android Market.
• Loquendo Susan is the first commercially available voice for Android. Users running FroYo can buy this voice on the Android Market. Thanks to the plug-in mechanism, once you buy a new voice, you can switch all your talking applications to use the newly installed voice --- see instructions below.

Activating And Using Newly Installed Voices

Goto Settings → Voice Input And Output → Text To Speech Settings. First, activate the newly installed voice by clicking the corresponding checkbox item for that voice. Next, go to Default Engine in the Text To Speech Settings menu, and make the newly installed voice your default engine. Finaly, if you want all applications to use the new voice, check option Always use my settings

With this in place, my Nexus and Droid both speak using Loquendo Susan --- thus turning my Android into into a truly pleasant eyes-free device.

Stitcher And TalkBack: The World In My Ears

Shortwave Radio --- and DXing was one my hobbies growing up--- I spent many hours listening to far-off radio stations ---and in the process developed a love for languages. Fast forward to the late 90's, and one could now listen to radio stations from all around the world on the Internet --- but this time without the hiss and static of shortwave propogation. But there was a catch --- you needed to be at your computer to listen to these stations. At home, I solved this problem by setting up a set of living room speakers connected to the computer in my office-bedroom; with a wireless keyboard, this brought Internet radio to my living room.

Fast-forward to the next decade, and I now have the Internet in my pocket in the form of a smart phone. I recently discovered Stitcher on the Android Market --- and it got me the final mile to having ubiquitous access to Internet Radio!

Using Stitcher With TalkBack

There is little more to say other than try it out! .Stitcher on Android is a simple Android application that worksout of the box with TalkBack. Once you install stitcher fromMarket, use the arrow keys or trackball on your phone to browse through the various categories. Clicking on stations launchesplayback immediately. Note that for now, the stop buttonin the player is not navigable by the trackball --- I have gotten used to hitting it by dead-reckoning since it always appears in afixed position. In the last few weeks, stitcher hasreplaced StreamFuriously , my previous Internet Radio solution on Android.

So here's to happy listening!A brief note on the title of this post --- The World In My Ears was also the title of abook on DXing by Arthur Cushen from New Zealand --- I remember hearing his voice in the 80's on the BBC's World Service.

An Eyes-Free View Of Android At The Google IO Sandbox

Google IO 2010 is playing home to over 5,000 attendees in San Francisco this week. A number of Google Access engineers are at the conference consuming and producing information --- here is a brief view of some of the exciting bits seen on the Android show floor from an eyes-free perspective.

Hardware And New Devices From An Eyes Free Perspective

Many of the phone manufacturers were showing off their latest devices on the show floor --- visit the Android Sandbox at Google IO to see these first hand. Charles and I walked through the various displays Wednesday (May 19) afternoon to test drive these devices first-hand --- given the large number of Android devices coming out every week, this was a unique opportunity to see many of these devices for the first time. Here are some highlights:

• All devices were running Android 1.6 or later, and consequently, Settings/Accessibility was available on every device. Having worked on this for the last 2 years, it's extremely gratifying to see phone manufacturers including accessibility in their devices.
• We found one device from Motorola where we couldn't find the accessibility setting --- the booth representative promised to check after we pointed this out --- waiting to hear back.
• My favorite device was the LG Ally --- check this device out if you get a chance.
  • Device to be sold by Verizon.
  • Device has an elegant tactual feel.
  • Front of the device sports hardware answer/hangup buttons.
  • The pull-out qwerty keyboard is a pleasure to use --- I would rate this one of the best designed cell phone keyboards I've seen.
• Android devices continue to show up in many shapes and sizes --- re-emphasizing that there is a device for everyone. This makes it even more important to choose a device that meets your particular needs.

Software --- Android Applications Galore

We also visited the various vendors showing off their latest Android applications. What was gratifying was that even though most of these developers had paid little thought to eyes-free use --- and were blissfully unaware of the existence of an Android Accessibility API, their applications worked for the most part with Accessibility enabled. Where there were gaps, we were able to show developers what they needed to do --- everyone was extremely receptive. Below is a brief summary of what we saw --- and a shout-out to all the friendly developers we met:

Where

This is a very accessible application I have been using for a while --- the developers were thrilled to hear that it was accessible since they had made no special effort.

Aloqua

A competing application to Where with a very slick visual UI. This application doesn't raise the appropriate Access Events at present because it's a custom UI. When we first talked to their lead developer he was extremely hesitant saying I dont want to change my custom UI. However, I could hear his face light up when we said You dont need to change your look and feel --- you just need to set a couple of custom Java properties (specifically, property ContentDescription

Pandora

Another favorite of mine that works well with access --- except --- the player controls are unlabeled. I showed them the application in action on my Droid --- looking forward to seeing this application become even more usable.

NPR News

There are many NPR tools on the Android Market --- NPR News is the official application. The application was originally written by a Googler and Open Sourced --- I have been using it for about 4 months and it's completely accessible. It could do with some power-user shortcut keys to make it even more efficient.

MLB At Bat

I had originally played with this application during last year's World Series; at the time, the application was quite usable with TalkBack. I'm happy to report that nothing has regressed --- the application still continues to to work well, except for a couple of glitches with unlabled player controls. The booth representatives had actually heard of accessibility --- and were receptive to fixing the remaining issues.

Summary: The light-weight design of the Android Access layer has proven valuable in making sure that it makes it on to every device. The minimal set of responsibilities the API places on developers has meant that a large number of Android applications are accessible out of the box.

Audio Books On Android --- Thanks Librivox!

In my previous article , I alluded to an Audio Books application forAndroid. I did not go into much detail on the application itselfbecause I felt it deserved an article of its own.So heregoes!

In Praise Of Librivox

If you aren't familiar with the Librivox project, please visit Librivox.org to see the wonderful work that that project is doing. Androidapplication AudioBooks brings the wonders of Librivoxto Android --- now, you can carry all 30,000 audio books andcounting in your pocket and access them anywhere .Here are some highlights:

• Browse, and quickly play available audio books. You canbrowse by several criteria.
• Books you listen to get downloaded to your device and areavailable for offline listening.
• All books provide a table of contents, allowing you to jumpto a specific portion of a book.
• 90% of the application user interface is completelyaccessible with TalkBack --- see below for missing accessfeatures.

The only glitche with using application AudioBooks with the Android Access API is that the player controls withinthe audio-book player are presently missing contentdescriptions --- this is Android-API speak to say that thecontrols are images with missing labels. So the first time youuse this app, you'll need someone to tell you the buttons ---alternatively just experiment to discover theirfunctions. There are pause, play, rewind and forward buttons ---if the friendly folk who developed this application stumble uponthis post, please get in touch, and I can show you what you needto add to your code to make the eyes-free experience evensmoother.

Happy Listening --- And Share And Enjoy!

Using Android Market Eyes-Free

The Android Market is a treasure-trove of applications --- many of which work out of the box with Android's Access API, and as a result, the freely available screenreaders on the platform. Working with Market can be initially daunting, given the large collection applications; additionally, there are a couple of spots in the workflow that need access improvements. While we get those fixes pushed, here is a step-by-step overview of using Android Market with TalkBack, including the work-arounds for moving over some of the afore-mentioned hurdles.

Android Market: A Brief Overview

Rather than giving a detailed explanation of all of Android Market's user interface, I'll sketch my day-to-day mode of using Market --- personally, I find task-oriented help guides far more usable.

Task: Find Application

• I typically launch Android Market from within the Applications list in the Eyes-Free shell. On my Droid, I typically do this with the keyboard already opened since I know I'll be typing very soon.
• I press the Search capacitive button on the bottomright of the display to bring up the search tool. Note that Market can sometime take a few seconds to launch depending on your network --- TalkBack should announce Market when it's ready.
• Type a search query --- as an example, try audio books
• Use the D-Pad arrow keys (up/down) to navigate the list of results. TalkBack speaks each entry as you move through the list.
• Find one you like; for this example, we'll use one of my favorite Market applications --- AudioBooks from project Librivox.
• Press the Enter key on the keyboard to open this application
• This takes you to a screen that lists a short description, and comments from various users on the application. The install button is on the bottom of this screen.
• And here comes the sticking point in the Market UI that we're working on fixing; when you cursor through this list, you dont always get to the install button.But no fear, you can still install the application!
• While we work on creating and pushing the fix for the above, I typically install applications by tapping the screen where the install button appears. The bad news is that Ipresently do this by dead reckoning; the good news is that the install button always appears at a consistent spot. The easiest way to learn to do this is to have someone put your finger on the button the first time, and then learn its position relative to the pull-out keyboard. While we know that this is not an ideal eyes-free experience, this little trick opens up a treasure-trove of applications.
• Tap the install button, and you come to the permissions screen. Cursor to the OK button, and press Enter Depending on the layout of that screen, you may once again need to use dead-reckoning. At this point, I routinely click those on-screen buttons, rather than wasting time attempting to cursor to the button.
• And voila, the AudioBooks application should download and install!

Task: Browse Market

In addition to searching, you can also browse the Market for available applications, use the cursor keys on the D-Pad for browsing. Once selected, installing an application follows the same workflow as above.

And The Best Is Yet To Come

Once installed, you can try out the application by pulling down the status bar. Look for the next posting in this series for details on using application AudioBooks --- it is one of my all time Market favorites.

Eyes-Free: TalkBack And Shell Improvements

Here is a brief summary of updates to Android's eyes-free tools--- including TalkBack, and the Eyes-Free Shell from the last two weeks.

TalkBack

• Speech during a phone call is now re-enabled.
• Turning the screen on/off is spoken. This announcement includes the ringer mode/volume.
• Changes in the the ringer mode - silent, vibrate, and normal are now announced.
• Unlocking the phone is announced.
• Other Android applications can programmatically discover if TalkBack is enabled.

Eyes-Free Shell

Now that applications can programmatically discover whetherTalkBack has been enabled, configuring Eyes-Free shell to become your default home screen has become a lot easier. In a nutshell,if you are a TalkBack user and install Eyes-Free shell, hitting the Home button will bring up the eyes-free shell, ---no configuration needed. Note that you can always get to the default Android home screen by long-pressing the Back button.

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