Improved typing notification for VoiceOver users

[sempruijs]

So element X now has typing notifications that VoiceOver users can hear when they have the someone is typing label selected. iMessage has a cool implementation for the feature for VoiceOver users. VoiceOver users hear bob is typing or alice is typing just by announcing the text. You do not have your VoiceOver cursor on the someone is typing element. It is just being announced.

I do not know how this will behave when you are reading a long message. I think it would be annouying when you are reading a message and suddenly it is interupted by that announcement. It does make the chatting experience more like a sighted person. You can write a message while you can see/hear that the other person is typing too.

I am curious what you people think of this idea :)

IOS 17.3.1 EX: 1.5.10 (94)

[Piciok]

Hello and thanks for taking up the accessibility issues of Element X. It is much appreciated as many blind users are in search of an accessible iOS client for the Matrix protocol.

SwiftUI allows for posting accessibility announcements via the designated functions. This function, apart from a regular string where the content of the announcement is contained, also allows for applying an attributed string to modify the behavior of the announcement, for example, the accessibilitySpeechQueueAnnouncement attribute will allow you to queue the announcement. It means that the typing notification could be read out as soon as the currently read output is done being read. This is the iOS app's equivalent of aria-live polite. You can read more at the following link: https://appt.org/en/docs/ios/samples/accessibility-announcement As an aside note, appt.org is a great resource for all kinds of best practice examples for the accessibility of mobile apps. Alternatively, a little sound or a haptic effect could be built in which is what Meta's Messenger and, I believe to some extent, iMessage are doing. The latter would work great for single-user chats.

I hope that helps out further anyone who wishes to take on the implementation of this request.