The following list of Voiceover gestures help anyone working in the area of digital accessibility as a reference document. This document also helps developers to check for screen reader conflicts while implementing custom gestures. These VoiceOver gestures should work on all IOS based browsers. See the Maxability recommended screen reader Vs browser combination for accessibility.
Voiceover is the built-in screen reader available in IOS devices. It should be available in
Settings > Accessibility > Voiceover
Most of the gestures explained below can also be used on Apple Mac computer on the trackpad. To use these voiceover gestures on Mac, turn on the trackpad commander, if it is not already on. To turn on trackpad commander use VO + rotate two fingers on trackpad in clock-wise direction. To turn the trackpad commander you can do so with the command VO + rotate two fingers on trackpad anti-clock-wise direction.
Note: IOS gestures are one, two, three sometimes even four finger.
Basic Voiceover gestures
| Gesture |
Action |
| Single finger single tap |
Selects or reads the item in focus |
| Single finger double tap |
Opens or selects the focused item |
| Single finger flick right |
Move to next item |
| Single finger flick left |
Move to previous item |
| Two fingers single tap |
Stop voiceover from reading |
| Two fingers flick up |
Speak the entire screen from the top |
| Two fingers flick down |
Speak the entire screen from the selected item |
| Two fingers scrub (like a z shape) |
Go back to previous screen |
| Three fingers tap |
Speak additional information, such as the position within a list or whether text is selected |
| Three fingers flick up |
Move to next screen in a long page |
| Three fingers flick down |
Move to previous screen in a long page |
Few more Voiceover gestures
| Gesture |
Action |
| Two finger twist in clock-wise direction |
Next rotor item |
| Two finger twist in anti-clock-wise direction |
Previous rotor item |
| Flick down after setting rotor to the item (heading) |
Quickly move to next items such as headings |
| Flick up after setting rotor to item (heading) |
Quickly move to previous item such as a heading |
