MAC OS LOW VISION ACCESSIBILITY
(Big Sur 11.0.1+)
Desktop:
Background Color: You may have noticed that the icons
on your desktop have text written below them in a white
font. In order to create the highest contrast between the
background and this text, I recommend beginning by right
clicking (which can be done on a laptop by holding the Control
key while clicking regularly) on your desktop background and
selecting the “Change Desktop Background…” option. This
will open the Desktop and Screen Saver settings. Under
Desktop, choose the “Colors” option under the Apple drop
down. Of the colors, a black background is the best choice for
creating a high contrast between your desktop background
and your icon text.
Icons & Text Size: To increase the size of your Desktop
icons, right click again on your Desktop. Choose “Show View
Options.” From the window that pops up, you can change the
text size of your icons up to 16pt, change the size of your
icons, as well as change how they are spaced apart.
General:
Appearance: Here, you can change the theme of your
entire computer between Light and Dark. If you are someone
who prefers a black background with a white text, you should
consider switching to a Dark appearance.
Displays:
Display: Under the display category, you can change the
resolution on your computer to enable a Large Text screen.
To do so, select the “Scaled” option under Resolution,
followed by the “Larger Text” option. The default display for a
13” screen is 1440 x 900, and the larger text display allows for
viewing in 1024 x 600.
Dock and Menu Bar:
Dock Size & Magnification: You can increase or
decrease the size of the dock, which is located at the bottom
of your screen. In addition, you can enable magnification so
that when you are hovering over an icon in your dock, it will
enlarge to a magnified size of your preference. You can also
change the location of the dock between the bottom, left, or
right.
Keyboard:
Dictation: One of the best things to use when you have
trouble with typing is the Dictation feature. This feature can
be found in Settings > Keyboard > Dictation. To utilize, turn it
from Off to On and take note of the specified shortcut that is
chosen to allow you to start dictating. You can customize
your shortcut key to anything, such as pressing the control
key twice or pressing the Fn (function) key twice.
Shortcuts: Another thing to do under Keyboard is set any
helpful shortcuts that you can utilize on your computer. To
access keyboard shortcuts, go to System Preferences >
Keyboard > Shortcuts. The ones that can help most would be
listed under Accessibility in the left side menu. I recommend
enabling Zoom, Contrast, and Invert Colors as Keyboard
Shortcuts for those who are Low Vision and do not plan to use
VoiceOver. The list of shortcuts is at the end of the document.
Accessibility:
Zoom: To best utilize the Zoom feature, you should enable
both the keyboard shortcuts as well as the scroll gesture.
When enabling Zoom, be sure to set the Zoom style to “Full
screen.” Next, click on “Advanced…” to change appearance
and zoom settings for easier use. Most people prefer to have
the screen image move “Continuously with pointer.” I
recommend enabling “Smooth Images,” but the other options
are up to you as to whether to enable or leave them disabled.
Follow keyboard focus will move your magnified screen to
show and travel with your cursor as you type text. This can be
great for some people, and can annoy others. The same goes
for the ability to enable a flash when a notification appears at
the upper right of your screen out of your magnified view.
Under the Controls menu, you have the ability to initialize
more shortcuts to enable proficient usage of a screen
magnifier as well as set the minimum and maximum levels of
magnification. Lastly, Zoom has the ability to display a
window of enlarged text when one hovers over text while
holding the command key. This feature is called Hover Text.
Before enabling Hover Text, choose “Options…” to set your
preferences. Depending on your level of visual acuity, you will
need to change the text size to your liking. I recommend
starting at 128pt and working downwards. As for text font, I
recommend Arial Black for the boldest and thickest option.
The shortcut key you choose is based on your preference, but
I recommend sticking with Command. Next, if you have a
preferred color contrast for reading text you can set that here
as well. If you are someone that enjoys a black text on a white
background, you should set your Text Color to Black and your
Background Color to White. Lastly, you can enable and utilze
the Hover Text feature by placing your mouse on top of text
and holding down the Command key. To have Hover Text
kept on at all times, triple-tap your Command key. To turn
Hover Text off, triple-tap the Command key again.
Display: Under this accessibility feature, you have 3 sub-
menus. Under the Display sub-menu, you can enable Invert
Colors, Reduce Motion, Increase Contrast, Reduce
Transparency, and Differentiate without Color. I recommend
enabling “Reduce Transparency” and “Increase Contrast”
because together they can provide greater contrast in the
MacOS menus. Below these options is the ability to change
the “Menu bar size” from Default to Large. Below that is a
sliding bar with tick marks to increase the Display Contrast
from Normal to Maximum. If it is helpful, I recommend
moving the marker up one tick mark on the sliding bar. In the
second sub-menu of Display, there is Cursor. In this menu, you
can enable “Shake mouse pointer to locate,” which will make
the mouse increase in size when you shake it quickly back and
forth. This lets you keep your mouse to a smaller size while
providing a feature to help you keep track of it if that’s
something you frequently struggle with. In addition, you can
increase the “Cursor Size” in general by moving the sliding bar
from Normal to Large. Last of the sub-menus is Color Filters,
which allows the user to Enable the various color filters
provided. You can either choose a filter from the various color
pencils represented, or you can choose a filter type specified
for various types of visual conditions. The various filter
options are a Grayscale, Red/Green Filter for those with
Protanopia, Green/Red filter for those with Deuteranopia,
and a Blue/Yellow Filter for those with Tritanopia. In addition
to adding the filter, you can increase or decrease its intensity
with a sliding bar below Filter Type.
Spoken Content: Under this feature, one can utilize and
customize the Mac’s various system voices to speak content
at a faster or slower rate. Spoken Content is great for those
who are on the cusp of benefitting from VoiceOver, but may
not be looking for as much audio feedback as that provides
and would like to still benefit from magnification along with
the occasional reading aloud of text. The various options of
Spoken Content are “Speak Announcements,” which will read
all notifications pushed to your computer. “Speak Selection,”
offers the ability to highlight text that you would like to have
read aloud, and press a keyboard command that then tells the
computer to begin reading the highlighted text. The default
keyboard shortcut to start selected text reading is by
pressing “Option + Esc,” and you also have the ability to
change the various options and controls for the feature. Next
up is “Speak items under the pointer,” which offers the ability
to have the text under your mouse cursor read aloud
wherever it is hovering. You can have it read items always or
only when you’re zoomed in with magnification. You can also
change how long it will wait to begin reading the text under
your mouse, allowing for almost no delay all the way to 5
seconds of pause. Lastly, Spoken Content offers “Speak typing
feedback,” which is great if you’re planning to do lots of touch
typing with your keyboard and want an audio confirmation as
to whether the words you’re writing are correctly spelled.
With the various options provided, you can have each
character, word, selection change, or modifier key spoken
aloud. For fast typers, I typically do NOT recommend enabling
character echo because your typing may be too quick for a
character echo to provide any benefit.
Voice Control: This feature allows you to edit text and
interact with your computer by speaking to it, rather than
utilizing the keyboard or mouse to navigate. Typically, voice
control is best for those who have some level of vision to be
able to vocally command the computer to navigate to, click
on, type into, or open various things on the screen. It does
take time to learn as there are specific commands and
limitations to its control. You can check out the commands by
clicking on the Commands button in the lower right corner of
the Voice Control menu.
Shortcut: Upon opening the Accessibility menu, navigate
to the option at the very bottom of the accessibility window
where there’s a checkbox that says “Show Accessibility status
in menu bar.” This will allow you to have a quick way of
accessing the accessibility features and shortcuts available.
Enable this option with the checkbox and you will now have
the Accessibility icon displayed among the right side icons on
your top menu bar. The icon should look like a cartoon
version of DaVinci’s Vitruvian Man drawing with a circle
surrounding it. To add various shortcuts to this menu bar icon,
navigate to the Shortcuts option at the very bottom in the
Accessibility menu of System Preferences. Here, you can
check off which accessibility shortcuts you’d like to be
featured in the accessibility icon drop down in the menu bar.
WEB BROWSER EXTENSIONS:
High Contrast Extension: Provides an enhanced
contrast, white text on black background, or yellow text on a
black background in your web browser. Search and download
this extension in Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge only.
Dark Reader Extension: Provides a white text on
black background option and allows for greater contrast or
brightness settings in your web browser. Search and
download this extension in Chrome, Edge, or Firefox.
ZOOM IN: Option + Command + “=/+”
ZOOM OUT: Option + Command + “-/_”
TURN ZOOM ON/OFF:
Option + Command + “8”
ZOOM IN/OUT WITH MOUSE:
Control + Scroll Up/Down
INVERT COLORS:
Control + Option + Command + “8”
INCREASE CONTRAST:
Control + Option + Command + “.”
DECREASE CONTRAST:
Control + Option + Command + “,”
OPEN SIRI:
Command + “Space”
START / STOP DICTATION:
Press Control Twice / Press Control Once