Windows Phone 8.1 Low Vision Tools

Over the past few weeks I’ve been experimenting with a Nokia Lumia 520, that I bought off the Microsoft store. It is a prepaid AT&T model and only cost $59 (USD). My mission was to update it to the newest Developer release of the operating system version 8.1. This new release features Narrator; but I’m not going to talk much about that today. Instead I’ll be talking about the Low-Vision features that it provides.

Now I should mention that out of the box the phone has a system wide Magnifier and a High-Contrast mode. So this is prior to the update to 8.1.

So here’s the Low-Vision features you might find useful:

  1. Magnifier (System wide feature just like in Apple’s iOS. Not sure how big it will get; I’m guessing around 500%.)
  2. High-Contrast Theme (This feature is just what it sounds like but has some added advantages over Apple’s iOS in my opinion.)
  3. Text-Size (This is the ability to change many system level fonts across the entire phone.)
  4. An Internet Explorer Zoom Override (This feature allows you to zoom into web content even if the page or app usually wouldn’t allow you too. I don’t have a lot of experience trying this yet, but sounds fantastic.)

So that’s the core Low-Vision features. The Magnifier smoothly and quickly activates once enabled in the “Ease of Access” section under settings. Instead of a three-finger operation like on iOS it however is activated by two-fingers. And navigation is done using two fingers.

Rant: Here’s a problem you’ll find using it. While smooth and fast and the zoom level granularity is on par with iOS it is harder to navigate with. The core of the problem is panning; or moving the field of view around while zoomed in. On iOS you don’t even think about it but when you swipe with three fingers and release the panning generally continues with a certain level of momentum. So with a few quick swipes you can be anywhere on the screen. Not so on Windows Phone. Soon as you pull your two fingers off the screen the panning navigation stops. The result is you can’t get anywhere on the screen without making sure your fingers remain in contact with the screen while swiping. Once you get use to it its not that bad. But it strikes me that it takes longer to get anywhere and makes my navigation feel more laborious than I think it needs to be. Oh, an here’s another rant, you can’t run Magnifier and Narrator at the same time. Ok I’m done, let’s move on to something more positive.

Now I said before that the “High-Contrast” theme was a nice feature; even perhaps better than iOS. And here’s why; It doesn’t affect photos. That’s right. Your photos are not eerie reverse colored images out of some horror film. Additionally, High-Contrast seems to make the system level fonts pop out more than even turning up the brightness to maximum will. Additionally, “High-Contrast” seems to have been designed by someone who had some brains. For example: The settings menu by default is white lettering on a black or dark gray background. Now if this was iOS we all know what would happen. The settings menu would be black letters on a white background when High-Contrast was enabled; not so with Windows Phone. The settings menu remains white lettering on a dark background; an as I said the fonts are even brighter than normal. So well done Microsoft!

Well that’s it for now but I’ll be sure to follow up soon. If you’d like to hear an audio demo of Narrator being used to setup my phone check this out. If you have any questions feel free to contact me on Twitter (@Certdoctor).

David Ward

IT Instructor; Also by day the Project Manager for Braille Sonar App with At Your Finger Tips.
3 comments
  1. […] REALLY OLD if you are reading a very long selection of text. Some systems make panning easier, see David Ward’s article on Windows 8.1 Low Vision Tools. Windows 8.1 will stop panning as soon as you lift your fingers from the screen whereas iOS has […]

  2. Hello, I am currently working with the Nokia 920, and waiting for the latest update to the OS which will feature Cortana (Microsoft version of Siri). I think the Nokia hardware is great, however, the limited App Store and lack of a few key options has left room for significant improvement. I agree with the post that the high contrast is good, but I prefer to flip colors back and forth as needed. They also need to have a reader imbedded like apple so I can just highlight text and have it read to me (giving my overworked eyes a break).

    The Good: it he no”Nokia pocket magnifier ” is great in combination with the impressive camera on the phone. It can magnify small text on paper to 5x without getting grainy. HERE CITY LENS is another great app, you can open it and pan your phone around to find out any food or retail within a mile or so then select it and start walking , following turn by turn directions. There is also a Here transit app which tells you step by step directions using public transportation. (No google maps available). And, last thing I will mention is being able to do about anything using voice command, searches, calls text, set reminders ect. All in all a decent phone which I hope gets better with the next update. I

    I was planning to move on to an android phone next, until I heard Apple is going big screen so that could change things. I have iPad 2 and absolutely love it, but I heard Android has come a long way especially with “google now”, and I like to try new things.

    1. certdoctor

      Thanks for the thoughtful comment. i’m looking to talk about the newest update that came out in the past week or so. It added folder support.

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