Assistive touch in iPhone helps individuals with disabilities perform functions that might otherwise be difficult or impossible to carry out. So, in Apple’s eyes, this technology assumes much importance. As a rule, the company includes assistive technology in its operating systems as standard features. You can enable it and customize it to your preferences.
How to enable Assistive Touch in iPhone and customize it to your preferences.
It’s true – Product developers who also focus on the user experience of people with disabilities invariably end up improving the product. Besides, the approach also helps in improving inclusion through the participation of people of all kinds. Assistive Touch in iPhone is a step in this direction. To enable it, do the following.
- On your iPhone, navigate to Settings.
- Scroll down to the Accessibility option.
- Select the Touch option.
- Tap Touch to go to AssistiveTouch settings.
- Toggle the AssistiveTouch switch to On.
When enabled, the AssistiveTouch on iPhone will appear as a button onscreen. You can drag it to any edge of the screen and it will stay there until moved to a different location again.
What is Assistive Touch on iPhone
Assistive Touch for iPhone is an accessibility feature. You can think of it as a system designed to adapt to the user’s needs and capabilities. Normally, it’s humans who must adapt to a system’s User Interface to learn how to use it (for example How to screen record iPhone). So, Assistive technology is just the reverse of this process.
It adapts the product to the user’s needs and capabilities by providing a socially relevant solution for the User experience and in the process ends up making the product more accessible.
Now, you can use AssistiveTouch to adjust volume, lock screen, use multi-finger gestures, or replace pressing buttons with just a tap.
How to put Assistive Touch on iPhone
Go to the Settings of your iPhone and scroll down to the Accessibility section.
Under the Accessibility screen, navigate to the Physical and Motor section. Tap the Touch entry to expand it.
Tap Assistive Touch and switch the toggle adjacent to it to On.
A black-colored square with a white circle in the center should appear on your screen. It’s the shortcut to the AssistiveTouch menu, and it’ll appear on every screen.
You can use it to access functions that would otherwise be controlled by pressing physical buttons or moving the device like, invoking Siri, capturing a screenshot, or simulating Shaking the device.
Tapping the shortcut button once will open the AssistiveTouch menu. Tapping once anywhere outside of the menu will close it.
How do you customize your Assistive Touch?
If you would like to customize the AssistiveTouch menu, do the following!
Go to Settings, select Accessibility > Touch, then choose AssistiveTouch again.
Next, tap the Customize Top Level Menu entry. Then, choose an icon to reassign a different function to its position.
Another way to customize it is by adding gestures for input. From the AssistiveTouch menu, select Device > More, then select Gestures.
Then, choose between 2, 3, 4, or 5 finger input.
After making your selection, multiple dots should appear on the screen indicating where the virtual fingertips are touching the screen. Moving one finger around the screen or performing taps will control all virtual fingertips at the same time. The virtual fingertips will automatically go away after a few moments of inactivity.
If you want, you can make the feature more accessible by creating your set of control gestures.
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