How to show gestures on iOS

Testing on mobile devices today has become a basic milestone of all Quality Assurance, because it is difficult to imagine a person who does not use his smartphone in solving everyday issues. That is why more and more attention is paid to the technical aspects of mobile testing. Today we'll look at how you can make life easier for yourself and your team by mapping touches to the touch screen of your iOS device. 

As you know, iOS developers don't look for easy ways, so you can't just click the «Show Touches» button and enjoy the result. Also, you can't find free applications that would record video of the touch display screen. Due to this, the problem of displaying gestures on the screen of an iOS device is quite popular. Let's consider the two most common solutions to this issue

Touch simulation

The first option is to apply simulated touches to an already recorded video. This is a rather time-consuming process that requires, among other things, a certain level of mastery of a video editor. You can use any familiar and convenient program for you – both mobile and desktop. For example, the video below was edited in DaVinci Resolve, a free suite of quite flexible and versatile video solutions, but you can use other software. 

Link to touch animations superimposed in the video editor: https://bit.ly/3ahUXWa 

The advantages of this method are:

• the ability to mark the place of contact in any way you like;
• every movement and touch is depicted as accurately and accessible as possible.

The disadvantages of this method are:

• complexity of the process;
• the need for video editing skills.

AssistiveTouch feature

The other most common way to display touch on an iOS device is to set up the AssistiveTouch feature. To do this, follow these steps: 

1. Go to the phone settings.
2. Choose «Accessibility». 
3. In the «Physical and Motor» block, choose the «Touch» option 
4. Choose «AssistiveTouch». 
5. Toggle the radio button by enabling the functionality.

6. Go to the «Custom Gestures» block.
7. Tap «Create New Gesture...». 
8. In the new window, you should play a short touch to the screen (tap), and click in the lower right corner «Stop».
9. Select the «Save» option in the upper right corner. 
10. Specify the name of the new gesture (any name) and save the changes. The new gesture will be displayed in the «Custom Gestures» block.

In order to use the new gesture display function in the application, you must: 

1. Launch the required application and open the place where the touch needs to be depicted.
2. Click on the auxiliary button on the screen.
3. In the menu that opens, tap «Custom» and select the newly created gesture. After that, a dot will appear on the screen, which is responsible for displaying the tap on the screen.
4. This point must be dragged to the clickable element of the application and click on it.

In order to turn off the gesture, you should tap on the auxiliary button on the screen, select «Custom» and tap on the arrow in the middle of the displayed menu. In order to turn off AssistiveTouch, in the Touch section of the Accessibility section, simply toggle the AssistiveTouch switch to the inactive position. Similarly, you can display other gestures – swipe, spread, etc.

Unconditional advantages of this method include:

• no need to manipulate editors or other means;
• speed and ease of display of basic simple gestures;
• general availability of the method for all users of iOS devices. 

Among the disadvantages of this method, it is worth highlighting:

• some complexity and convention of displaying the gesture;
• constant display of an additional button on the screen;
• the need to enable gesture display in each application separately.

Of course, none of the described methods is completely convenient and easy to use, each of the options involves certain advantages of use, as well as inconveniences and disadvantages. It is up to you to choose the method you want to use.