Voiceover

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Screen readers are the main reason that becoming blind or partially sighted doesn’t mean becoming isolated from technology. In fact, with the built-in accessibility tools available as standard on many devices, the opposite is often true. Once the right features are enabled, visually impaired users often navigate their devices easier and more efficiently than sighted users.


What is VoiceOver?

VoiceOver is an inbuilt screen reader on all iOS devices, that is designed to read information that is found on the screen, including main text, notifications and buttons. It allows the person using the device to navigate using gestures and audio feedback. VoiceOver is easily accessible from the settings menu of the devices, it can even be used when setting up a new device. 


How turn VoiceOver on and off?

There are several ways to enable VoiceOver

Option 1 - Settings

Go to Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver and toggle VoiceOver ON

Option 2 - Using Siri 

Say “Hey Siri, turn on VoiceOver”

Option 3 - Using the triple-click or triple tap shortcut 

Triple-Click

Set it up via Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut, then select VoiceOver. 

You can now triple-click the side or home button to turn it on or off. 

Triple Tap

Set it up via Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap > Accessibility Shortcut 

Option 4 - Add to control centre 

Go to Settings > Control Centre and add Accessibility Shortcuts for quick access.

Option 5 - Create a VoiceOver widget 

Use the Shortcuts app to create a custom widget that toggles VoiceOver with one tap.

Option 6 - Action Button

On newer iPhone models you can customise the function of the action button which is situated above the volume buttons. One of the options is to use it as an accessibility shortcut. 

To customise 

Settings > Action Button > Accessibility > VoiceOver 

A few of these methods are really helpful if VoiceOver does not need to be on all the time — for example, if the phone is shared for work and only one person relies on VoiceOver or if your sight fluctuates on a day to day basis. 


VoiceOver gestures

VoiceOver uses touch gestures rather than standard taps. Below a few are listed…

Swipe right - Move to next item

Swipe left - Move to previous item

Double-tap - Activate selected item

Two-finger swipe up - Read everything from the top

Two-finger swipe down - Read from the current item

Three -finger swipe up/down - scroll the screen

Two-finger double-tap - Start or stop the current action (Like answering a call or pausing music)

Two-finger quadruple-tap - Turns on screen curtain (essentially a privacy screen so no one else can see what is on your screen)

You can explore and change gestures in Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Commands 


Practice mode 

Apple have built in tutorial that lets you practice using the gestures without actually affecting anything on your device. It is a great way to learn the motions safely - especially if you are nervous about performing unwanted actions. 

To access it, go to: Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > VoiceOver Practice 


Customising VoiceOver

When using VoiceOver, most things can be customised to suit the preferences of the user. The customisable setting include: speech rate, voice type, verbosity, rotor, typing Mode (standard typing (tap to select a key, then double-tap to type), touch typing (lift your finger to type), or direct touch (types immediately, for advanced users)), Braille Display Settings – Fine-tune settings for connected braille devices and audio ducking this automatically lowers the background audio when VoiceOver is speaking.

You can change the typing style under Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Typing Style.


All of the settings above can be found under:
Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver


Most of the information used in this post was sourced from another blog, An Intro into VoiceOver on iPhone written by Deafblind Techie (Anna Holloway). If you want to read it, you can read it here: https://deafblindtechie.blogspot.com/2025/08/an-intro-into-voiceover-on-iphone.html

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