Adobe launches macOS Voice Control in Adobe XD
Adobe on Tuesday announced that the latest version of Adobe XD will support macOS Voice Control, making the user experience design platform more accessible for people with physical disabilities.
Apple introduced Voice Control to macOS with the Catalina release last year, letting users control their Mac entirely with their voice. The feature uses on-device Siri speech recognition technology, which according to Apple, ensures personal data is kept private.
Now, with Adobe XD's enhanced labeling, users of Apple's Voice Control feature will be able to use their voice to launch the platform, access all of its core design features, create prototype interactions in Prototype mode and more.
Once a user has enabled Voice Control, they can simply say, "Open XD" to launch the tool. Users can create custom commands in their Voice Control settings to quickly access menu items in XD. For instance, you could create a command to say "Create component," which would group selected objects and convert them into a component.
"Innovative technologies like Voice Control help us enable an entirely new group of creatives like never before, some of whom may have not previously had the opportunity to express their creativity with existing tools," Adobe software engineer Cameron Cundiff wrote in a blog post.
Accessibility features have become an increasingly important consideration for designers and developers, as digital tools become a ubiquitous, critical part of everyday life. According to the CDC, about 16 percent of adults in the US have a physical disability.
Earlier this month, UBank released an open source accessibility kit on Github to help iOS developers ensure their apps are more accessible to people with certain disabilities. Additionally, the software quality testing firm Applause just released its new Applause Accessibility Tool, which automatically finds and fixes accessibility issues.
Last year, the Supreme Court opened up the door for lawsuits challenging websites and mobile apps that aren't accessible to people with disabilities.