Hi, my name is Brian Kemler,
and I’m a product manager on Android Accessibility.
Today, my colleague Sharlene and I will be talking
about the work our teams have done over the last year
to make Android more accessible.
When we think about disability, we think expansively.
Disability affects not only individuals but also their friends, family, colleagues,
and, indeed, anyone they interact with.
I’m going to be talking about how we’ve been working to develop our products
with the nearly 750 million people
who are blind, low vision, deaf or hard of hearing.
Working with focus groups in these communities,
today we will share just some of the more than one dozen new features coming soon.
So let's get to it.
TalkBack, Android’s screen reader, is and has always been
a mainstay of accessibility on Android.
Inside Google, we test Google products
to make sure that they're compatible with TalkBack.
Externally, we encourage all application developers to do the same.
If your app doesn't work with TalkBack,
that means a blind or low-vision person can’t use Android without assistance.
Being able to use the device independently is of the utmost importance
to both our users and everyone they interact with.
So please test your apps for accessibility.
TalkBack is a screen reader,
but it does a lot more than read the screen aloud.
It takes user input to enable display-free operation
so blind and low-vision people can perform literally any task a sighted person could,
all without having to look at the screen.
Over the years, we’ve heard TalkBack users want improvements,
such as easier gestures, simpler menus, and new ways to customize the screen reader
to work according to each individual's unique needs.
And this year, we address those feature requests
in TalkBack's most significant release to date.
TalkBack’s angle gestures let users operate their phones
with a single hand, like when they’re using a cane.
But some users asked for a more intuitive system.
So we went back to the drawing board and added a dozen multi-finger gestures
to make gestures easier to learn, memorize, and use.
For instance, we added a much-requested gesture to control media playback.
Now, this may sound simple, but for a blind user who has to navigate
through multiple menus, UI elements, and announcements,
just to start or stop a podcast, it's now dramatically simpler.
A double tap with two fingers is all I need to control playback.
Reading and listening is also easier
with new reading controls and a unified TalkBack menu.
Reading controls let you change how you navigate on the fly
with a three-finger swipe right or left,
and then a single-finger swipe to slice through headlines,
sentences, or to listen word by word.
We’ve also combined the previous global and local context menus
into a single unified TalkBack menu,
so now everything people need to perform common actions is in one place.
We’ve also learned from working with the community
is that everyone interacts with their devices in a different way.
So starting with TalkBack 9.1, most gestures and menus are customizable.
Instead of just talking, TalkBack now understands voice commands
to help people access difficult-to-find actions.
These are just a few of the nearly dozen new features,
including a new Tabletop mode and two new languages
for TalkBack’s built-in Braille keyboard.
The all-new TalkBack is not only a collaboration
with the community but also with Samsung,
who is now actively contributing code in our new partnership.
The fruit of our joint effort is that TalkBack is now the default screen reader
on Samsung Galaxy.
This means learning how to use a screen reader on Android
will be simpler and easier.
Together, Google and Samsung will be able to deliver improvements faster
and more frequently than ever before.
Now, let's focus on low vision.
There are nearly 250 million people who have some form of low vision.
Among the most prevalent kind is light sensitivity.
Have you ever looked at a glaring screen in the middle of the night
only to have to hold or tilt it away from your eyes because it was too bright?
This is how people with light sensitivity experience light in everyday conditions.
Light sensitivity can be a symptom of migraines, dry eye,
or just looking at your phone in really dark conditions.
Starting in Android S, we’re including a new Extra Dim setting in Accessibility
that reduces screen brightness to near total darkness.
We hope this feature makes reading in low light
a little more comfortable for everyone.
For users who need a little help seeing the finer print,
we’ve added a new Window Magnifier.
Window Magnifier differs from the current full-screen magnification
in that it spot-magnifies only a portion of the screen helping you maintain context.
We include the ability to use both at the same time
and to switch between full and window magnification.
With low-vision users' needs in mind,
we’ve also now included the ability to bold text to improve readability.
And with that, I’m going to hand off to my colleague Sharlene
to talk about accessibility for deaf and hard-of-hearing people.
Thanks, Brian.
Hi, everyone. My name is Sharlene Yuan.
I work in Android Accessibility,
and I’m the product manager for Live Transcribe and Sound Amplifier.
Today, I’d like to share with you how we’re making audio more accessible
for deaf and hard-of-hearing people.
At the very last slide, I will also touch base
on how you can access these different experiences.
Did you know that the population of deaf and hard-of-hearing people,
466 million people, would make it the third largest country,
just behind China and India?
If you think about it, it wouldn't be a huge surprise.
Almost everyone knows a person who has hearing challenges.
It could be your parents, grandparents, or friends.
And most likely, we will also develop certain type of hearing issues as we age.
Broadly speaking, there are two ways we can access our audios:
one with captioning, and another with amplification.
I will be going into each of these in depth
and how they benefit the user experience both on device and in the real world.
And this is really important.
We strive to make our products more accessible.
But also where we can, we like to leverage machine learning and AI
to make the world around us a little more accessible.
So let's dive right in.
First, I'm going to talk about captioning, and then I will talk about amplification.
Two years ago, Sundar announced at Android, first,
the ability to caption speech in media with Live Caption.
Live Caption makes speech accessible
to the 466 million people who are deaf or hard of hearing,
not to mention, those of us who prefer to read instead of listen.
Since then, Live Caption has added the ability
to caption calls and identify songs playing in videos.
Now, let's move on to Live Caption's sibling:
Live Transcribe and Sound Notifications.
It's an app that makes everyday conversations
and surrounding sounds more accessible among people who are deaf and hard of hearing
using just your Android phone.
I will go over how we make conversation and sound accessible in the following slides.
To make the app more accessible to users globally,
Live Transcribe now supports over 80 languages and dialects
and serving millions of people.
We’re also working on supporting offline mode in Live Transcribe this year.
There are also features such as typing back response and custom dictionary
to help users communicate easier with others.
Now, for developers who are looking to include
transcription and dictionary customization, you’re welcome to check out Cloud Speech API.
We’ve talked about captioning conversation. What about captioning sound?
Imagine that you're deaf and you're at a hotel.
Suddenly, a fire alarm goes off.
How would you know this if you couldn't hear the alarm?
With Sound Notifications,
you can be alerted with push notifications, flashing light, or vibration on your phone
when there are critical sounds around you so that you can take action quickly.
But what if your doorbell sounds like bird chirping sound?
That will work too.
We're working on a customization feature
which allows you to train your own unique sound,
in this case, your bird-chirping doorbell,
so that you can be alerted when someone rings your doorbell.
Let's now take a closer look at what you can do
with Sound Notifications.
Depending on whether or not your phone is on you,
you can set up the alert with push notifications,
a flash from your camera light, or vibrations on your Android phone.
If you like to have your Android phone
constantly monitoring surrounding sound at your home,
pairing with a connected wearable should give you the best experience.
With timeline view, you’re able to see what happened last night while you were sleeping.
We build Sound Notifications
based on our sound understanding machine learning technology.
It runs purely on device.
If you’d like to know more about the technology powering this,
my teammate Sagar is going to talk about it
in the Machine Learning Applications for Accessibility session.
Now, imagine you're losing your hearing,
which probably all of us will encounter as we age.
What’s the first thing you wish you can do?
Most likely, you want to have something
that can help you hear audio more clear, right?
This is what Sound Amplifier is built for.
We ship Sound Amplifier to help hard-of-hearing people
listen to real live conversations by bringing down the background noise
and boosting the frequency levels your hearing is weaker at.
In our recent release, we’ve also added one of the top-requested features,
which is to support Bluetooth headphones.
Other than improving clarity of audio in the real world,
we've also added the same capability
for the music and video being played on your phone.
Now, how do we open them on the phone?
Imagine that you’re a person with vision, hearing or cognitive conditions.
Being able to use your phones and access to the real world is super important.
This is why we think it’s essential for users to access the Accessibility products
quickly and easily with Accessibility button.
In previous versions of Android, users are able to access Accessibility products
through Accessibility shortcut by either pressing on volume hardware buttons
or software button inside the system navigation bar.
This could be very unfriendly,
especially for motor-impaired and low-vision users
since the button is tiny and performing gestures could be very difficult.
I’m happy to announce that, in Android 12,
we have made improvements to Accessibility shortcut
so that they are easier to trigger with the always-on floating button.
Accessing your favorite Accessibility products is now just a tap away.
And you can quickly get it out of the way when you don't need it.
Thank you all for watching. I hope you enjoy our session.
If you have any questions or feedback, please reach out and let us know.