Samsung’s One UI software has come a long way, offering far more meaningful features than ever before. It has also improved a lot over the years along with Android to become usable by more people, thanks to all its accessibility features. These are features that are often overlooked by many, but are crucial in shaping the smartphone experience for those who may have hearing, vision or motor impairments. Many of these accessibility features are already available, while others can be easily downloaded from the Play Store. Here’s a quick look at all the accessibility features currently available on Samsung Galaxy phones.
Audio feedback with TalkBack
TalkBack is among the best accessibility features on Android. It offers spoken feedback and context for what’s on screen. Here’s how to enable TalkBack:
- Open Settings and select Accessibility.
- To select Answer.
- Enable the switch and press Allow.
- You can access Talkback settings from the same page to customize the feature by changing your preferred language, voice speed and much more.
With this particular accessibility feature enabled, your device will automatically read everything on its screen. You can interact with items on the screen by swiping left and right, double-tapping, or dragging items with two fingers. The element on the screen that you’re interacting with is highlighted by a blue (or green on Pixel phones) box. Enabling Talkback will give you a full feature tour, explaining all the features and how to use them.
Spoken assistance for typing
Voice assistance is also a great feature for those who have trouble typing on the keyboard. This will cause your Samsung device to read all characters as you type on the keyboard. You can also customize it to read words and say “Capital” when you press capital letters. It only works with Samsung’s default keyboard, but here’s how to use it:
- Open Settings and select Accessibility.
- To select Spoken assistance.
- Enable the Speak keyboard input aloud activate/deactivate.
You can also use this particular accessibility feature to enable audio descriptions for videos or to add voice recordings to NFC tags to provide information about nearby objects.
Visibility improvements to help you see better
Visibility enhancements, as the name suggests, allow you to edit text to make it easier to read. From changing the size of text and making it pop with more colors and contrast levels, to adding a magnifier and removing animations, you’ll find just about everything here. You can also use a high contrast keyboard or dim the display brightness using the features here. To access these visibility improvements:
- Open Settings and select Accessibility.
- Faucet Visibility improvements.
- Look for the option you want to enable and press the corresponding switch to apply it.
Hearing improvements for those who are hard of hearing
Samsung’s One UI doesn’t have real-time text (RTT) like you get on Pixel phones for regular phone calls (yet), but there are plenty of other hearing enhancements available. Instead of using RTT for phone calls, you can simply put the call on speaker and use Google’s Live Transcript feature to get real-time transcripts. Just make sure you are in a quiet environment for it to work properly.
Sound notification is also a great feature that notifies you of any important sounds in your home, like when a smoke alarm goes off or when a baby cries. Here are a few you’ll find in the accessibility settings:
Other hearing enhancement features include support for real-time closed captioning, adaptive sound preset to match your age, the ability to amplify ambient sound, and more.
Features to improve interaction and dexterity
Samsung devices also come with helpful accessibility features for those who have difficulty touching the screen or interacting with user interface elements. All of these features are grouped together in the Interaction and Dexterity menu, where you’ll find the option to use an external or camera switch or use your voice to control the device hands-free. I highly recommend checking out our Google Switch Access guide to learn more about this feature and see how to use the camera switch to control your device. You will find these options on the same accessibility page in the settings.
Some of these features will also come in handy if your phone’s touchscreen breaks.
Some other interaction and dexterity options include the ability to change the tap settings to make the device ignore repeated taps or change the tap and hold delay. Notably, you can also have your device read caller names aloud and answer calls automatically, so you avoid manual inputs.
Samsung continues to make its phones better for everyone
It’s great to see all the progress being made in the accessibility department, as all of these new and improved features make the Android experience easier for more people. It’s a step in the right direction, and we’ll continue to explore and highlight more of these features across Android and other operating systems. It will be interesting to see how Google and its OEM partners continue to improve the Android Accessibility Suite, so stay tuned.
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