How Much Do You Use VoiceOver's Recognition feature?

By Praveen, 2 April, 2025

Forum
App Development and Programming

As a App developer, I’m curious to know how much the AppleVis community is utilizing VoiceOver Recognition. It can be enabled in Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > VoiceOver Recognition, where you can turn on specific recognition features.

This feature enhances VoiceOver by detecting text in images or providing custom accessibility labels for elements that lack proper accessibility properties.

However, turning on Recognition, sometimes introduce new issues like announcing a label twice. Have you faced similar issues? if so kindly share your experience.

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Comments

By OldBear on Wednesday, April 2, 2025 - 11:41

It's not too much of an issue for me if it describes a properly labeled control because it comes after VO has spoken the label, and I can ignore it, or I don't even hear it because I've already swiped past it. However, I don't like the thought that recognition would be used by developers as an excuse to not label things for accessibility.

By Praveen on Wednesday, April 2, 2025 - 12:41

Yeah, I totally agree with OldBear. As developers, it’s our responsibility to provide meaningful descriptions for elements. However, we can’t prevent VoiceOver Recognition from announcing the label again, since it detects and reads content on the screen independently of its context.

I’m curious—how much of an issue is this for you? Does hearing the same label twice feel disruptive, or have you gotten used to it?

By Holger Fiallo on Wednesday, April 2, 2025 - 12:41

Never use it.

By Praveen on Wednesday, April 2, 2025 - 13:02

By default, the Text Recognition feature is enabled, allowing VoiceOver to detect and read text within images. Are you currently using this feature?

By jim pickens on Wednesday, April 2, 2025 - 13:06

I love it, it’s great for images on Reddit and similar things like screenshots, it’s OK for inaccessible apps like what I use for my meal plan, and it’s overall really useful, I’d say I use it at least once a day, mostly for images, sometimes for apps.

By Stephen on Wednesday, April 2, 2025 - 14:02

I just keep this feature on. If I want to know what a photo is without putting it thru a third party app it will just do it.

By Holger Fiallo on Wednesday, April 2, 2025 - 14:19

It does not do a good job with pictures. Do not know why? JAWS does a great job with describing pictures.

By Michael Hansen on Wednesday, April 2, 2025 - 16:49

Member of the AppleVis Editorial Team

Hi Praveen,

What is it you are looking to accomplish? I feel like if we have a better idea of what your question is, we would be able to provide you a more informed answer. Especially if you are developing apps, it would be great to be able to answer your underlying question directly. These recognition features are tools and nuanced, and they all have their place, but these are all supplementary to good accessible design. A VoiceOver-generated image description will never take the place of a properly tagged image in your app, Screen Recognition will never (and should never) take the place of an accessible UI, etc. etc. etc.

By Brad on Thursday, April 3, 2025 - 05:02

It's there as a tool to improve apps that might be inaccessible, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Just because it exists; does not mean it's going to make your app work with voiceover, you are going to have to put in the work if you want us to use your app/apps.

By Praveen on Thursday, April 3, 2025 - 06:56

Thanks, Michael. I’m experiencing issues with Text Recognition—despite setting proper accessibility properties for an image, the feature still detects text overlaid on image. According to an Apple Framework engineer, this is a bug, as it shouldn’t recognize independent text overlaid on an image. I was curious to know how many users actively use this feature and what challenges they face when it’s enabled.