Project Eyes-Free has developed three core accessibility applications called TalkBack, SoundBack and KickBack that provide spoken, auditory and haptic (vibration) feedback respectively. These are available on Android phones running Android 1.6 or later.
TalkBack, SoundBack and KickBack
TalkBack is a screen reading application that produces spoken feedback when using native Android applications. SoundBack produces non-spoken auditory feedback to users. For example, TalkBack may announce the name of a contact when you scroll through your list of contacts (e.g. John Banks) and SoundBack will produce non-spoken auditory sound (e.g. a tone) as you scroll from one contact to the next. KickBack provides haptic feedback in the form of vibrations to Android users. Thus, when SoundBack plays a tone when a menu option is selected, KickBack may also reinforce this though vibration.
Installing TalkBack, SoundBack and KickBack
In many case, the accessibility applications will need to be manually installed and activated before they can be used.
An easy way to enable and install these accessibility features and other accessible Android apps is to download the IDEAL Accessibility Installer app from the Android Market. The IDEAL Accessibility Installer helps install TalkBack, Soundback and KickBack on your phone.
Once you have used the IDEAL Accessibility Installer to install these services, you will need to download the text-to-speech engine separately to make TalkBack work. You can enable the text-to-speech engine via Settings > Voice input and output > Text to speech.
There are additional apps like the Eyes-Free Shell and a stack of Project Eyes-Free and IDEAL apps such as the IDEAL Magnifier app, that are also helpful tools for someone who is vision impaired.
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