Accessibility at Apple: innovating for all

Sarah Herrlinger of Apple explained more in her talk ‘Accessibility at Apple: innovating for all’ covering all the in depth features Apple offer to people with all sorts of disabilities, as Apple believe ‘technology is designed for everyone and lets people do what they love.’  

This really hit the nail on the head for my question, some children with different types of disability rely on technology to help them learn.

Apple is keen to play a role in helping students be more creative, productive, engaged and collaborative in many different ways, as everyone has different learning styles, and therefore Apple have built-in accessibility features into everything they make. Herrlinger said: “People can be the most engaging with their learning when the power of accessibility leads to design and creation.”

Everyone learns differently and with accessibility comes opportunity for a lot of people. For example, being blind and having a device with a touch screen can be a nightmare, so Apple has built into iOS a blind functionality feature. As its on iOS it works across all Apple products and once you have learnt it on one device, such as your phone, you will be able to use it on any iOS device. 

Accessibility is about usability 
The way that everyone uses technology is different, even with mobile phones - it’s a device that everyone has but people utilise it differently and require different features. Although we often address disability, this is then spilt into many different elements, vision, hearing, physical and motor skills and learning and literacy. 

Herrlinger explained: “It’s not just these set areas either, disabilities range rapidly so technology needs to. Take for example a learning disability, you could have been born with it, developed it or it could be temporary at the level it is. Hearing disability could be just partial hearing, deaf in one ear or no hearing at all.” She added it could be a short term disability like a broken arm, so accessibility in technology needs to be able to aid everyone.

Accessibility is productivity and can benefit all types of students. Having the speak screen can aid dyslexic students who can read and write but provide just a little extra help. The multi-mode will also help as words on the screen are spoken and highlighted at the same time to try and encourage children to pick up more words. This can also be used by any students that just want their work read back to them by another voice - great for checking essays. 

When people look at apps and technology on computers and smart devices it can be confusing, but can also be made more attractive. Herrlinger described it as: “Chocolate covered brocoli, something that was boring and not appealing, but can become more fun as it can be made to be like a game.” That is what Apple aim to do for education, and students help them become more interested in their work and learning. 

Apple is also launching new resources to its existing programme called ‘Everyone can cope’ as it believes accessibility should be at the core of everything so everyone can use technology from the start. 

Herrlimger finished by saying: “It’s about ensuring the next generation of engineers and coders come from all aspects of life and there is no limitations.”