Apple has long been one of the leaders in accessibility on its computers and mobile devices. Accessibility, in computing, according to Wikipedia:
refers to the accessibility of a computer system to all people, regardless of disability type or severity of impairment. The term accessibility is most often used in reference to specialized hardware or software, or a combination of both, designed to enable use of a computer by a person with a disability or impairment. Specific technologies may be referred to as assistive technology.
Both on the Mac and on iOS, there are a number of accessibility settings, to help users see, hear, and work with their devices.
But Apple is also using this term, and the same “human” icon in another location on macOS Catalina. It is found in the Security & Privacy pane of System Preferences.
This section is where you allow apps to control your Mac; you give explicit authorization, through a number of alerts and dialogs, to apps to allow them to interact with other apps.
This latter use of the term accessibility is simply wrong. Yes, it is about accessing your Mac, but this is a term with a very clear meaning in computing. And using the same icon for accessibility in these settings makes it look as though these settings somehow affect how a user interacts with the Mac.
In a chat today, my colleague Craig Grannell, who has written a lot about accessibility, said this:
Accessibility is too often where things go that Apple doesn’t really want you to trigger. On macOS, there is no good reason why the transparency settings aren’t in General.
There are a lot of settings on the Mac that are wedged into the Accessibility preferences that should be more obvious, and Reduce transparency is certainly one of them. (And I’d argue that the term should be “translucency,” not transparency…) Voice control is another. While it is designed for people with physical limitations, the dictation feature can be used by anyone to convert speech to text, especially now that Nuance has discontinued its Dragon software on macOS.
Pointer control should be in the Trackpad and Mouse preferences. This is where you set a double-click speed, and where you adjust the spring-loaded folder delay.
On iOS, there are even more essential settings filed under accessibility, but some of these settings are also found elsewhere. For example, to change the system font size, you can go to Display & Brightness, or to Accessibility. In Accessibility, you can activate auto-brightness, which you cannot access where you would expect (I’d expect that setting to be in Display & Brightness).
Settings for the Magnifier are in Accessibility, whereas this is a feature that is not just for visually impaired people. Reachability, a feature designed for one-handed access to the larger displays of iPhones, is also hidden in Accessibility, as are Tap to Wake and Shake to Undo.
Accessibility is essential, and it’s not just for people with handicaps or disabilities. Apple really needs to make all this more coherent, providing more logic in how settings are organized, and especially changing the way they describe the security setting that allows apps to control your Mac, which has nothing at all to do with accessibility.