Windows Accessibility - Part 2

Welcome back to Windows Accessibility!

If you haven't read Part 1 yet, it will probably be better to read it before Part 2.

Next on the list of things to talk about is the Windows Narrator. The 'Narrator' app is mainly used to aid navigation around your computer. The 'Narrator' reads things out when you hover over an element on your screen, it even reads out the window title. Before I wrote this post, I tested this app to see how it works because I've never used it before. As far as I know (and please correct me if I'm wrong), the 'Narrator' is mainly used by people who have visual impairments.

The way you access the 'Narrator' is similar to accessing any app under the 'Ease of Access' category. You can also start the app by using the keyboard by holding the Windows key, Ctrl and Enter at the same time (don't worry if you can't press multiple keys at once because there is a workaround that too, which I'll explain later on).

The 'Narrator' app reads out most keystrokes as you type, however, if you type fast, it can't keep up with your typing speed. When I tried it out, it was a bit slow in saying the keys that I pressed. I also found that it didn't seem to read every keystroke, which I think is quite odd, however, you can change this so that it reads every key that you press. I only found this out by having a look at the settings, so some people may not realise that you can change this. The 'Narrator' app also changes pitch for some reason, depending on which keys you press. For these reasons, I don't think this is a great app.

Although in my opinion, this app isn't easy to use at first, there are lots of settings you can alter.

You can navigate by word or paragraph around a webpage by using the 'Ctrl' and the arrow keys on your keyboard. You can press Ctrl and the left and right arrow to move around by word, and Ctrl and the up and down arrow to move by paragraph. There is also separate software to download (not supported by Microsoft) that can help with navigation too.

We now move onto settings for your hardware keyboard (physical keyboard). There are several settings that you can change to make your keyboard easier to use. First of all, there are sticky keys. Sticky keys enable a user to press one key at a time to execute a command that requires you to hold or press more than one key separately. The simplest way to explain it is that it locks the keys 'Ctrl', 'Windows', 'Alt' and 'Shift' until you press another key. For example, if you want to use the keyboard shortcut for save (Ctrl and S), with sticky keys, you can press these keys one at a time, but still save your work. You can also press these keys twice to “double lock” the keys to use it more than once, and when you're finished using this feature, you simply press the same key once more to unlock it.

Sticky keys allow people to use a keyboard with one hand, foot, or whatever you use, and still have access to every command. This is extremely useful for me because I struggle to hold down multiple keys due to the way my legs work as my knees tend to scissor (overlap or cross), especially when I have my legs close together, so using both my legs just doesn't work well. To be honest, I didn't know about sticky keys when I first started using computers at home, I can't remember how I managed without sticky keys, but I imagine I found it challenging.

Sticky keys can be enabled in the Windows settings, as most accessibility settings, the sticky keys settings can be found under the 'Ease of Access' section, and then click 'keyboard'. There are five toggle settings for sticky keys; these are to turn sticky keys on and off by pressing the 'Shift' on the keyboard five times, a shortcut to show the sticky keys icon on the taskbar, to lock a key when it is pressed twice in a row (press again to unlock), to turn sticky keys off when two keys are pressed at the same time, and the last option is to play a sound when each key is pressed.

With sticky keys, you can alter how the computer interacts and lets you know that you have activated the lock. You can have visual and sound feedback when you are using sticky keys. You can have both of these, one, or neither. Personally, I only have the visual setting, and this displays an icon on the taskbar that indicates which keys are locked by turning the section that represents the activated key black. I find this icon extremely helpful because sometimes I don't realise or I forget that I've activated a key, and this icon helps me know for certain if I have pressed one of these keys and which one.

Randomly, there is a menu key to the left of the right 'Ctrl' key. If you find it easier to use the keyboard rather than a mouse, you can use this key to bring menus up; for example, the right click menu.

Moving onto 'filter keys'... I have heard of these before, but I had to research to find out what they were because I wasn't sure what they were as I have never used them. Filter keys allow you to alter the speed that you type with multiple strokes of the same key; for example, if you tend to accidentality press keys more than once, you can turn filter keys on to let your computer ignore multiple presses within a certain time-frame. To enable 'filter keys', you can go into settings and click on 'Ease of Access', there you will find the filter keys settings. You may hear 'filter keys' being referred to as something like typing speed settings, but after doing some research, I'm pretty sure that they are the same thing.

I'm just going to mention a key on my keyboard which I have no idea what it does: 'Scroll Lock'. My first thought was that it may temporarily disable the scroll on programs, but it doesn't do that, so this has puzzled me for ages. Do you know what this does? Mind you, I don't know what 'Pause Break' does either.

Now we look at another Windows accessibility feature called the 'On-Screen Keyboard'. The 'On-Screen Keyboard' is a piece of built-in software that lets users type without a hardware (physical) keyboard. The best way to describe it is that it's like a tablet keyboard without a touchscreen.

If you can't use a hardware (physical) keyboard, you can use the 'On-Screen Keyboard' instead. With the 'On-Screen Keyboard', it has a few settings you can alter. The first three settings are toggle settings; you can set it to make a sound each time you interact with the 'On-Screen Keyboard', I don't know for certain, but I think this helps people with visual impairments.

Below the 'click sound' setting, you have the option to turn the page navigation keys on. These keys are the likes of Navigation, move the page up/down, 'Dock', and 'Fade'. I think 'Dock' separates the number pad from the main keyboard, but it's greyed out, so I can't be sure. 'Fade' just makes the 'On-Screen Keyboard' look slightly transparent so that you can see what's underneath it.

In the options, below the last option I mentioned, you can find an option to turn on the number pad.

You can choose how you interact with the 'On-Screen Keyboard'. You can choose to make the keyboard scan through rows of the keyboard and select a section of the keyboard, and then select a key. You can change the key that you press to select and change the scanning speed as well.

In the options of the On-Screen Keyboard, you also have predictive text. The On-Screen Keyboard has space for eight word predictions, which work the same way as a mobile phone predictive text system. In my opinion, the predictive text is the best feature of this app. This app also works with all other apps that you input text into.

In the main, the On-Screen Keyboard is a very good app because you can use it in so many different ways. Like all Ease of Access apps, you can set this to start up when you sign in to Windows. To do this open the 'options' of the On-Screen Keyboard, and at the bottom of the window, it has a link saying “Control whether the On-Screen Keyboard starts when I sign in”, click on that link, and it will open Control Pannal. In here you will find a toggle that is labelled “Use On-Screen Keyboard”, click on this and then click “Apply” or “OK” - this should start the app automaticity when you sign in to Windows.

Sticking with keyboard settings, there is an option to use predictive text when you type using the hardware keyboard within Windows. To enable predictive text, again, you go into Windows settings, but this time, open up the “Devices” section. The options might look like they're in a slightly different order to mine, but the principle is the same. Here you will find seven subheadings down the left-hand side. Click on 'Typing' to open up options for typing on your hardware keyboard.

In this section, you will find lots of settings you can turn on or off. Under spelling, there is the option to allow the computer to automaticity correct words that it thinks you have misspelt. Sometimes this isn't the best option though because although I haven't had issues with this (probably because I've never used it), some people say that it replaces your words with random ones.

Similarly to auto-correct, in the same section, you can have predictive text enabled. This feature is meant to enhance your typing speed, but I have found that it actually slows me down because I'm concentrating on which words are coming up. Another thing that slows me down is the fact that when I select a word that I want to insert, sometimes it inserts that word in random places, like in the middle of other words, or it deletes part of the previous word. I don't know if it just happens on my computer, but for this reason, I don't use this feature any more because, in my opinion, it is more trouble than it's worth.

The next option is pretty simple; you can choose if you want the predictive text to highlight misspelt words. However, I'm not sure why you would want it to do this because most apps these days have spellcheck built-in.

The next subheading is a weird one because it is called 'Typing', even though it's under a section with exactly the same name... It does make sense, but why not call it something different? It gets a bit boring. Most of this section is a bit repetitive, so I'm not going to go into detail as I'm pretty sure I have talked about these factors. However, there is a setting called 'multilingual text suggestions'. I'm guessing this is to predict words in different languages if you write in multiple languages.

Here's a screenshot.

We have come to the end of Part 2! Tune in next time for more...

See you soon!