Google releases open source tools, making iOS easier to access

Google recently released a quite useful tool - Accessibility Scanner for iOS (translated: Access scanner for iOS - designed to help make iOS apps easier for visually impaired and hearing users This tool is now available on GitHub with open source.

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As explained by Google representatives in a blog post yesterday, Accessibility Scanner for iOS (aka GCSXScanner) will help discover, debug and fix common access problems. currently in iOS code bases:

'Application development is certainly a complex process and cannot be done in a moment, especially when the application is relevant to the test user. In fact, when developing a new feature, often developers will have to undergo a few changes to the code, build, launch and test new features. Therefore, if we can detect problems with access to new features right from this stage, the recovery will be easier and significantly more time-saving. '

In essence, GCSXScanner is an Objective-C library that is part of the iOS application process, and can perform a check of the accessibility of the user interface on the screen with just a touch of a button. GCSXScanner primarily uses GTXiLib, a library of integrated tests for many accessibility issues, but also supports the extended framework plugin to add custom tests, and allows them to run in parallel with the scan tool's default checking procedures.

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'Using this scanning tool does not mean that we can bypass manual testing or automated testing - these are the must-have factors to ensure the final product quality. However, the advantage that GCSXScanner brings is that it can speed up the development process as well as monitor the quality by showing the problems that occur to the application right in the development phase 'Mr. Janga Janga , Google representative engineers share.

The launch of GCSXScanner took place just a day after Google released Lookout, an Pixel smartphone app that uses the same basic computer vision technology as Google Lens to help users. Visually impaired people recognize their surroundings by directing their phones to objects. These applications are expected to contribute greatly to the search giant's accessibility application library project, which is receiving a lot of interest from the community.

Earlier in January, Google released two notable accessibility tools, including Live Transcribe (live phonetic toolkit) and Sound Amplifier (audio amplification tool kit). Both use machine learning algorithms to transcribe speech and amplify sounds for the hearing impaired. Besides last year, Google has also launched Voice Access, an application that replaces touch interactions on the voice touch screen with the same meaning.

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On a broader scale, it can be seen that Google has really made efforts in implementing coordination to improve the Android experience for visually impaired and hearing impaired users. In August 2018, they introduced a new set of open specifications to promote hearing aid development that works perfectly on Android phones through the low-power Bluetooth feature (Bluetooth low energy - LE ), complete with low latency and minimal impact on battery life. Thus, it can be seen that Google's ambition in the field of developing accessibility tools has been clearly planned and has a relatively specific and effective implementation schedule.