How to Enable Button Shapes on an iPhone

The Settings menu on the iPhone has an accessibility feature for a lot of the different problems that people might encounter while using the device.

Aside from things that can make the screen easier to see or the audio easier to hear, there are also options that can make the screen easier to tap.

Our tutorial below will show you where to find a setting that will highlight the shapes of buttons that you can tap, which can make it easier to complete actions and move between menus.

What is Button Shapes on iPhone?

While it is possible to be somewhat precise when you are using the touchscreen on an iPhone, you may have trouble with tapable interface elements that are very small.

By enabling the button shape setting in the Settings app, you can make the tappable items a little easier to recognize, which can help you to better navigate the phone.

Versions of iOS before iOS 7 used to have buttons that were styled to look like more traditional buttons.

However, the design change in iOS 7 removed this style as the default setting for buttons in the operating system, which led many users to have difficulty determining if something was a button that they could interact with or if it was simply text.

You are not stuck with this design, however, and you can change a setting on your iPhone, which will make button shapes more discernible.

Our guide below will show you where to find this setting so that you can enable it and add a gray button shape outline around the buttons in iOS.

Summary – How to Enable Button Shapes on the iPhone

  1. Open Settings.
  2. Choose Accessibility.
  3. Select Display & Text Size.
  4. Turn on Button Shapes.

Our guide continues below with additional information on the iPhone button shapes setting, including pictures of these steps.

Old Method – Adding Shape Outlines to Buttons in iOS 8 (Guide with Pictures)

The steps in this article were performed on an iPhone 6 Plus, in iOS 8.4.

However, these steps will also work for any device that is using a version of iOS higher than 7.0.

If you are unsure about which version of the iOS operating system is currently installed on your iPhone, then you can read this article and learn how to find that information.

Step 1: Tap the Settings icon.

open the settings menu

Step 2: Select the General option.

In newer versions of iOS the Accessibility menu is now found as a top-level menu, so you no longer need to open the General menu first to get to it.

select the general menu

Step 3: Tap the Accessibility button.

open accessibility menu

Step 4: Tap the button to the right of Button Shapes.

You should now see a gray arrow around the General button at the top-left corner of the screen.

turn on button shapes

For the sake of comparison, the image below shows the screen in Step 4 without the button shapes turned on, as well as with button shapes turned on.

button shapes comparison

There are many adjustments that you can make on your iPhone which will help to improve your battery life. One of these options is found on the Accessibility menu.

Click here to find out which option it is so that you can turn it off and save a little extra battery life.

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