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Quick Tip

Image accessibility labels from Localizable.strings files

I recently discovered that if we add an image name to the Localizable.strings file in a SwiftUI project, SwiftUI will automatically use the localized string as the image accessibility label.

For example, we might have a custom image in the Assets catalog called person.bicycle. When it's used in a SwiftUI Image view Voice Over will read "person bicycle" when the user is focused on the image.

// Voice over reads "person bicycle" by default
Image("person.bicycle")

If we add the image name to the Localizable.strings file to provide a better accessibility label and to localize it, SwiftUI will use the localization automatically.

// Inside a Localizable.strings file
"person.bicycle" = "Person on a bicycle";

Voice Over will now read "Person on a bicycle" when the image is focused. We don't even have to apply the accessibilityLabel() modifier to the Image view.

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Swift Gems

by Natalia Panferova

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