Android TalkBack: Three and Four Finger Gestures

Hi, my name is Ricky Enger, and today we're gonna take a quick look at TalkBack gestures using three and four fingers. We're just gonna touch on a few of these gestures just to get a feel of what it's like to use them. We'll really take them for a spin in the next few workshops. We're using a Google Pixel phone for our workshop here, but what we're learning should be pretty much the same for a lot of other Android phones as well.

For some phones though, these three and four finger gestures aren't gonna work, because the phone is set up to use gestures with just one finger to do things. We do have some really great resources showing exactly what to do if these three and four finger gestures don't work for you. So go ahead and scroll down the workshop page and check out the resources area to find that, plus there's info on how to contact us if you need to.

Okay, so let's start with three fingers, and we'll see if your phone will work with these gestures. In our workshop on using two finger gestures, we talked about placing our fingers in a way that feels pretty natural. They're not all bunched up together or anything. We just leave a little space between each finger. It's about the width of our thumb, trying to squeeze itself in between the other fingers. So our three and four finger gestures are pretty much just like that. Most likely, the right spacing between the fingers is gonna happen automatically as we place our fingers on the screen in a way that really feels most natural. So let's try that with three fingers. We're just gonna tap once. So we'll just place our fingers down and then quickly lift. Here we go. Three fingers and tap.

Google Assistant: TalkBack menu. Actions in list. Double tap to activate.

Ricky: Yes, that's exactly what we want. The three finger single tap brings up our TalkBack menu. Now, if this didn't work for you and you're thinking, oh no, I did it wrong, or my phone isn't working, no, it's just that your phone needs those one finger gestures instead.

So you can go ahead and stop here. The resources to get you started with those one finger gestures are just down a little bit on the workshop page if you scroll, and remember, you can contact us to walk through things together as well.

Okay, so if our gesture worked and the phone said "TalkBack menu," our TalkBack menu is up, and there are some options here. The first item in this menu is called actions, and we're definitely gonna use this for many different things as we learn more about our phone. Now, let's just swipe through these other options while we're here so we know what's available. So we'll swipe right with one finger.

Google Assistant: Read from next item.

Ricky: Okay, that will just start reading from where we are until we reach the end of whatever is on our screen. Nice. Let's swipe tight.

Google Assistant: Copy last spoken phrase.

Ricky: And again.

Google Assistant: Screen search.

Ricky: Cool, we can search the screen for a specific thing so we can jump right to it. And we'll swipe again.

Google Assistant: Hide screen.

Ricky: So that makes our screen go completely blank for privacy, so that nobody can look over our shoulder or anything. So we'll swipe right.

Google Assistant: Voice commands.

Ricky: And again.

Google Assistant: TalkBack settings.

Ricky: Okay, good to know. We can change some things about how TalkBack works. And one more time. We'll swipe.

Google Assistant: Text to speech settings.

Ricky: All right, great. That has settings for the voice that we're hearing, like how fast it speaks, that kind of thing. And one last time, let's swipe right.

Google Assistant: Cancel button.

Ricky: Awesome. That's the end of our list. Let's double tap with one finger here to close that.

Google Assistant: Pixel launcher. Messages.

Ricky: Okay, so we did take a little side trip there so we could explore our TalkBack menu. But yeah, that one little gesture, just tapping once with three fingers, brings up our TalkBack menu. Turns out that menu is incredibly useful, right? Now, let's add one more finger to the mix and see what we've got for four finger gestures. So this is basically just using every finger except our thumb. Again, placing those fingers on the screen naturally, not all squished together. Let's use our four fingers and do a single tap and see what happens. So tap.

Google Assistant: Practice gestures. Try any TalkBack gesture on this screen to hear what that gesture does. Tap the screen with two fingers. Keep practicing by tapping once, twice, or three times with two, three, or four fingers. You can also double tap and hold with two, three, or four fingers.

Ricky: Okay, wow. This is really cool. It's an area where we can practice our TalkBack gestures without having to worry about actually making any changes on the phone or opening something we didn't intend to open. So let's try a gesture we've already practiced today and see what happens. Let's tap with three fingers

Google Assistant: Tap with three fingers, open TalkBack menu.

Ricky: Yep, that's exactly what we learned. And notice how TalkBack is telling us what gesture we performed and then what that gesture does. That's nice because if we're wondering whether all the fingers are being recognized, or if we really are double tapping or swiping in the right way, this is a great place to find that out. Okay, so let's do one more three finger gesture that we haven't practiced yet. Instead of tapping, like we've already done, let's swipe. So we'll swipe right with three fingers.

Google Assistant: Swipe right with three fingers, next reading control.

Ricky: Hey, great. We heard the gesture and then a description of the gesture. Now we just have to figure out what next reading control actually means. And that's exactly what we'll do in our workshop on reading and navigation. Until then, let's finish for today. And we'll do that by swiping right to find our finish button here in this tutorial area. So we'll swipe right.

Google Assistant: Finish button. Double tap to activate.

Ricky: We'll double tap that.

Google Assistant: Pixel launcher.

Ricky: And we're done. I'm Ricky Enger, and I'm glad you could spend a little time with me today learning a few three and four finger gestures. See you next time.