Into the RNIB Library with the Overdrive App: Part 1

Something a lot of people have been talking about recently is the OverDrive app on iOS, specifically in relation to the RNIB Talking Book library in there. Overall it appears to have been generally well received and, as it has been creating a bit of a buzz, I've decided to put my "Using Comments in a Worksheet with JAWS" post back in the mix for another day and check out the iOS Overdrive app with VoiceOver.

I'm taking the VoiceOver route purely because of my own natural bias towards portable devices when it comes to TTS reading and other audio books. For me, I'm just more likely to make use of this software if I install it on the iPad Mini as opposed to my PC. In fact, there's something about reading books on a PC that really doesn't work for me at all, unless I have the room to myself where I can use the main speakers. Anyway, let's jump straight in.

Signing in with the Overdrive App

After finding, installing and opening the OverDrive app from the Apple App Store, I have focus on some message text that appears to be asking me to sign up or log in. When I SWIPE RIGHT focus moves to a Sign Up button and another SWIPE RIGHT takes me to a Have an Account? Sign In button. Yet another SWIPE RIGHT takes focus to a button where I can declare that I'm under 13 years old. That's a pretty sobering moment right there and isn't something I have to worry about ever these days, so I SWIPE LEFT a couple of times to put focus back on the Sign Up button.
When I DOUBLE TAP on the Sign Up button I am presented with the following options:

Sign up with Facebook: button
Name: text field
Email address: text field
Email address again: text field
Password: text field
Yes! Help me find my next favourite title. Receive recommendations and reviews: checkbox.
Sign up: button

Alternatively, if I DOUBLE TAP on the Have an Account? Sign In button instead, I am presented with these input options:

Sign in With Facebook: button
Email Address: text field.
Password: text field
Remember Me: checkbox
Sign In: button
Forgot Your Password?: link

NOTE: To move back to the previous page in the Overdrive App there are two physical locations to pay attention to. One back arrow button is sometimes positioned near the top left of the screen while in most of the other more common screens in OverDrive the back button is located in a line of options at the bottom left of the app screen. I would advise spending a bit of finger drag time to get used to the screen layouts as much as possible.

Thankfully for me, the most appropriate option is to use my Facebook details to login to Overdrive. These days I'm increasingly in account overload territory, so I shudder at the idea of having yet another login name and password to remember. So, via the Sign In button I SWIPE to and DOUBLE TAP the Sign In with Facebook button.
The login via Facebook page now appears with the expected Facebook login options, these are:

Email Address or phone number: text field
Password: text field
Log In: button

After my customary typo's with my Facebook details (my own fault for choosing such long email addresses and passwords) I think I have logged in although nothing is announced automatically. Ignoring the lack of automatic feedback, I use a DOUBLE FINGER SWIPE UP gesture to force a read through from the top focusable element on the current page.
Sure enough, my login appears to be successful and I'm focused on what seems to be a pretty simple page. This Home Menu sounds interesting so I put my VoiceOver focus on the Home Menu button in the top left of the page and DOUBLE TAP to launch it. Although the Home menu opens immediately (actually in a long vertical window on the left hand side of the screen) the VoiceOver cursor stays focused on the Home menu button. So this is probably a good time for a bit of finger dragging - I need to explore the screen and get some details. Although I am logged in to the OverDrive app I am not yet logged in to the RNIB Talking Book Library which is a different login.

Finding and Logging into the RNIB Overdrive Library

With the Home Menu list of options open, I could just drag around the screen to latch on to something in the expanded list but I like to use my trusty FOUR FINGER SINGLE TAP at the top of the screen to "ground" my cursor on the top focusable element on the screen.

NOTE: This four finger gesture is fairly new so if you have upgraded iOS recently you should be able to use it. This is fast becoming one of my favourite "cursor grounding" gestures - when you tap with four fingers at the top of the screen it puts the VoiceOver cursor on the first focusable element. By doing this I have the confidence that, when I start swiping through the screen elements, I have started at the very top of the list. I should also point out that this gesture, when you use it at the bottom of the screen, puts your focus on the last focusable element too, allowing you to swipe backwards.

From the first element I SWIPE RIGHT a few times until I move to an option called Add a Library. I DOUBLE TAP to activate this option.
In the next page I continue to SWIPE RIGHT to reach a Search input field. I type in "rnib" and SWIPE RIGHT to a Search button which I DOUBLE TAP to activate.
Focus moves to the results page so I continue to SWIPE RIGHT until I have focus on the RNIB details that have been found. A DOUBLE TAP on those details moves the focus to another results list.
I follow the same procedure as in the previous step, I SWIPE RIGHT - past the "Library Systems" heading to eventually focus on a text element labelled "Royal National Institute of Blind People". I activate this with the usual DOUBLE TAP and focus now moves to the home page for the RNIB Library!
After a few seconds of drifting round the page (hey, there's some interesting stuff on there) I use my FOUR FINGER SINGLE TAP near the top of the screen to put the VoiceOver cursor on the top element, so that I can work through the page ingredients in some kind of order and begin to map out the screen a bit - besides, I still haven't logged in to the RNIB Library yet and need to find that option.
After SWIPING RIGHT a few times I have focus on a Sign In link. When the new page loads, focus is on the Library Card Number text field and, nearby, a Password text field. I move into the edit mode for each text field and type in the information I have received from RNIB. After this I activate the associated Sign In button and that's it - I'm logged in to the RNIB Library.

General Notes on Navigating the Pages: Rotor Control

NOTE: Before we go through finding and reading a book, it is useful to refresh on our good friend in VoiceOver - the rotor control. The reason I mention this now is because some of these pages are pretty information heavy and being able to scoot around a particular element (moving only through the hyperlinks for example) might be useful for you. Let's go through an example...

Moving to the Search Edit Field Directly

To demonstrate the rotor control, here is a quick way of getting to the main Search text field on the RNIB Overdrive home page. Of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong in using a swipe or by dragging your finger to locate this but I'd suggest giving the rotor control a bash here - it might make navigating a little bit easier at times.

From the RNIB Library Home Page, launch the rotor control by holding two fingers on the screen, then dragging the second finger round the first in a sort of circular motion. If the gesture has been recognised, you will hear VoiceOver indicate some options such as Links, Headings and Form Controls - which are the very items we need actually!

NOTE: Using the rotor can be tricky at times. Try to imagine the gesture like turning a tuning control on a radio or like winding up a clock or watch. Imagine making a winding gesture on the screen with two fingers, like turning a dial so that it points to different spokes on a wheel. When each "spoke" is set, for example "speech rate", you can then use a SINGLE FINGER SWIPE UP and DOWN to make the actual changes to the chosen rotor option or category.

Keep using the rotor gesture to turn the "dial" on screen until you hear the rotor option labelled Form Controls.
When you have set the rotor to Form Control you are then able to use the ONE FINGER SWIPE UP to move to the previous Form Control in the page or a ONE FINGER SWIPE DOWN to move to the next Form Control. In this way you can move directly between only the form controls in the page.
Using this method of SINGLE FINGER SWIPING UP and DOWN locate the Search Field in the page. Pretty nifty once you get the hang of it.
Then, when you have a feel for how this approach works, you might want to set the rotor control to "Headings" and navigate through the Headings directly. You can also set it to "Links" too - so if you haven't explored this feature in VoiceOver before then have bash at it and see if it works for you.

Okay, now that all of the logging and signing in has been taken care of and I have explored some of the information in the home page, it's finally time for me to get to the books. It's time to run a search!

Searching for a Book

Finger drag, swipe or use the rotor Form Control option to locate the Search text field - on my iPad Mini this field is physically positioned towards the top, right hand edge of the screen.
In the active text field type in your search criteria such as a book title or author or even a keyword and run the search operation.
Focus now moves to a list of results, displayed in a kind of book cover view by default. Finger drag over the screen to read the titles and use the THREE FINGER SWIPE UP to move through the pages.
Alternatively, another route to make sense of the results for your search is via the rotor options again. Set the rotor to Headings and SINGLE FINGER SWIPE UP or SINGLE FINGER DOWN until you have focus on Search Results, which is a level 3 heading.
With focus on the Search Results heading, now SINGLE FINGER SWIPE RIGHT to move in a logical element by element fashion. Listen out for the number of matches, this will be read as something like: 1, 15 of 15 which, translated, means "showing 1 to 15 of 15 results". With that information I can make a decision on whether I need to fine tune my search or just soldier on using finger drag or swiping to locate the book I want.

Find the Book, Play A Sample

With focus on a book in the Search Results list, I can SINGLE FINGER SWIPE RIGHT through a whole bunch of options. However, my basic approach is to activate the "Click here to view more details..." option and move to a page that is solely focused on the details for the chosen book.
I switch the rotor control to Headings and SINGLE FINGER SWIPE UP or SINGLE FINGER DOWN depending on where my focus is to the main level 3 Heading title.
With focus on the heading title I can SINGLE FINGER SWIPE LEFT once to focus on the Sample button. A DOUBLE TAP activates the button and automatically plays the sample audio.
When the sample has finished playing, I finger drag to the bottom left of the OverDrive app and locate the back button. A DOUBLE TAP takes me to the previous screen so that I can now choose whether to borrow the book or put it on my wishlist - but we'll cover the latter in a future post.

Example Search and Playing Some Sample Audio

We have covered a fair bit of ground in this post and it might be useful to give you more of a quick-fire walkthrough using a real world example. So, I'm going to run a search and play a sample of one of the classics of the Horror genre - "The Rats" by the late great British Horror maestro James Herbert. Okay, let's go:

After logging in, I turn the rotor option to Form Controls and SINGLE FINGER SWIPE UP or SINGLE FINGER DOWN (depending on current focus) to locate the Search edit field quickly.
I run my search in the standard way with the following keywords: Herbert The Rats.
I now turn the rotor option to headings and SWIPE UP or DOWN to locate the level 3 heading Search Results.
The search has brought the trilogy into the list, but I am interested in the first novel only. So, I SINGLE FINGER SWIPE RIGHT several times to locate the "click here for more options about The Rats" item and activate it with a DOUBLE TAP.
Now in the page for the specific book, I SINGLE FINGER SWIPE UP or SINGLE FINGER DOWN to locate the level three heading "The Rats".
With focus on the book title heading I SINGLE FINGER SWIPE LEFT once to focus on the sample button. I activate this with a DOUBLE TAP.
I sit back and enjoy the opening paragraphs of this classic Horror novel. Lovely!
When the sample has finished, I locate the Back Button in the bottom left of the OverDrive app interface and activate it with a DOUBLE TAP. I'm done here!

That's where I'm going to leave it for now - I realise this post has been a bit heavy at times but I hope that my own exploration has provided some fresh insights and confidence with approaching this App. It does seem like there is a lot of great content online already and RNIB are always adding new titles which is fantastic so this is one not to miss. However, I am somewhat dismayed that there is a real lack of quality UFO literature in the Library, maybe one day Santa will give us an audio version of Leslie Kean's breakthrough work "UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record." Maybe. I digress...

Now that we have covered some of the initial approaches and have started to get a feel for how OverDrive works, I'm going to explore a few more tasks and options in a future post. But, for now, happy exploring and reading!

One final thing... RNIB have recently uploaded a video on using VoiceOver in OverDrive, here it is:

Seeing Different

Thursday 19 February 2015

Overdrive App - RNIB Library - VoiceOver