Google announces Action Blocks, a new accessibility tool for creating mobile shortcuts

Google today announced Action Blocks, a new accessibility tool that allows you to create shortcuts for common multi-step tasks with the help of the Google Assistant. In that respect, Action Blocks isn't all that different from Shortcuts on iOS, for example, but Google is specifically looking at this as an accessibility feature for people with cognitive disabilities.

"If you've booked a rideshare using your phone recently, you've probably had to go through several steps: unlock your phone, find the right app, navigate through its screens, select appropriate options, and enter your address into the input box," writes google accessibility software engineer Ajit Narayanan. "At each step, the app assumes that you're able to read and write, find things by trial-and-error, remember your selections, and focus for a sustained period of time."

Google's own research shows that 80 percent of people with severe cognitive disabilities like advanced dementia, autism or Down syndrome don't use smartphones, in part because of these barriers.

Action Blocks are essentially a sequence of commands for the Google Assistant, so everything the Assistant can do can be scripted using this new tool, no matter whether that's starting a call or playing a TV show. Once the Action Block is set up, you can create a shortcut with a custom image on your phone's home screen.

For now, the only way to get access to Action Blocks is to join Google's trusted tester program. It's unclear when this will roll out to a wider audience. When it does, though, I'm sure a wide variety of users will want to use of this feature .