Tap and hold to select an item or open a combo box within an app

By meaghan.roper, 20 December, 2016

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Hi everyone, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on using a tap and hold gesture to open a combo box or dialogue pop-up within an app? I'm a voiceover user myself, but customers I work with are saying this is not an easy gesture to use within the app my company is developing. The idea behind this gesture is that when you double-tap on an item and hold, a pop-up menu will open to change settings on the page or add comments. My question is, do you find this gesture difficult to use, or do you think it is a user-based issue rather than an app or voiceover issue? Thanks in advance for your feedback.

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Comments

By Wayne Scott Jr on Monday, December 26, 2016 - 11:21

I find this gesture at times difficult to use. Since I use a braille display most of the time, it is easier when the dialog box pops up, just to double tap the box to open it and then go throught. You can't tap and hold on a braille display. If you can, I sure don't know about that. Wayne Scott

By Darrell Hilliker on Monday, December 26, 2016 - 11:21

Hello Meagan,

Instead of just requiring the use of the double-tap-and-hold gesture, please consider making use of the standard facilities for popups, where you double tap to enter, select from a list then double tap a Done button. In addition, please consider implementing the VoiceOver Actions functionality when a menu is required.

Thanks,

Darrell

By dvdmth on Monday, December 26, 2016 - 11:21

As suggested in another comment, you can add additional actions to the Actions rotor, so that a user can swipe up or down to select a custom action. VoiceOver will announce if an element has alternate actions, either with the long phrase, "swipe up or down to select a custom action," if hints are enabled, or the shorter phrase, "actions available," if hints are turned off. This helps discovery of alternatives available to the user.

I personally don't mind the long press gesture, and I have used it in a number of apps, including Apple's own. There's even a way to do it on a Bluetooth keyboard, by pressing VO-Shift-M. However, there is no way to tell in advance where the gesture will work, and I have found myself trying the gesture in several places in an effort to find some functionality in an app, which can be frustrating. A couple of apps I have used provide a custom VoiceOver action, usually called something like "More" or "Show menu," which has the exact same behavior as a long press. This is probably the best solution, since it makes it easy to provide a consistent experience between blind and sighted users.