A Video Review of Typing.Com- 48 Free Touch Typing Lessons

In this 15 minute video I demonstrate the touch typing website, typing.com.

In this video, you will learn
*Why touch typing is important and how it can help us,
*That typing.com is a free website that contains 48 individual lessons that develop your touch typing skills,
*You can create a free account at typing.com to help track our progress
*It comes with clear instructions and animations to help us
*That you can change the keyboard layout depending on where you live in the world
*A record is kept of your typing speeds and any keys that you are struggling with
*That typing.com has an attractive design which is easy to use and that the screen can be modified slightly to help people with visual impairments.

The video includes a full set of subtitles but if you would prefer to read a full transcript of the video, please find one below

Start of Video Transcript

Hello everyone. It is James from the Visual Impairment Team in Devon.

In this video I am going to demonstrate the website Typing.com

So that I don’t waste your time, let me quickly tell you what is in the video.

In this video you will learn

that why touch typing is important and how it can help us,

that typing.com is a free website that contains 48 individual lessons that develop your touch typing skills,

We can create a free account at typing.com to help track our progress

It comes with clear instructions and animations to help us

That you can change the keyboard layout depending on where you live in the world

A record is kept of your typing speeds and any keys that you are struggling with

That typing.com has an attractive design which is easy to use and that the screen can be modified to help people with visual impairments.

So to start, let me briefly talk about the importance of touch typing.

Touch typing is the ability to type on a computer keyboard while looking at the computer screen.

It is the expertise of knowing where individual keys are and using all the fingers on both hands in order to type without having to look at the keyboard.

Touch typing is a lifeline for many people with visual impairments.

For sighted people, touch typing enables a person to work much faster on a computer.

For people with a visual impairment, touch typing is a big part of being able to use a computer more independently.

An added bonus of being able to touch type for people with or without a visual impairment is that their posture whilst working on a laptop or a desktop, will be better.

Touch typists tend to sit with straighter backs looking at the screen than non touch typists who are more hunched over looking at the keyboard.

And now, moving onto Typing.com.

Typing.com is a free website that contains free touch typing lessons, keyboard familiarisation games and tests aimed at developing your touch typing skills.

In this video I want to focus on the 48 lessons that are split into different levels; beginner, intermediate, advanced and practice.

The big questions are, is it any good and how accessible is it for a person with a visual impairment?

First, some technical details. I am using Mozilla Firefox on a Windows 10 laptop, but this website should be accessible via Chrome or Microsoft Edge or on an Apple laptop.

Everything is web based which is great because there is no software to download and it can be accessed on many different devices.

A downside to this is that in order to access it you will always need the Internet- which is becoming less of a problem these days.

The site’s theme is a blue and white combination, importantly the design is not too cluttered.

The first feature that I want to draw your attention to is the registration section, which is prominently displayed at the top of the page.

This is a great place to have the notice.

The big advantage that registration brings is that by creating an account, you can track your progress but you can also earn badges.

If you don’t register then you will have to manually record your progress somehow and remember where you left off!

It takes about 1 minute to register. You just need to create a username and a password , there is no need to provide an email address although you can log in using other services such as Google and Clever.

So I have logged in using my Google account.

It takes me to a dashboard that shows me my current lesson (I haven’t started yet!) and also some key statistics, such as…

The design remains uncluttered at this point.

There are 14 lessons in the beginner level and they are divided up into different groups of letter keys.

What is interesting is that there are two revision lessons in there which is smart thinking.

Let’s start lesson 1, “j,f and space”.

We are taken to a page which has a graphic of a keyboard and a pair of hands. There is now an ad at the top of the page and running down the left hand side.

The f key is highlighted because that is the key that we need to press and the index finger of the left hand is also highlighted as that is the finger that we need to use.

Press the enter key and a new screen loads.

There are still 2 ads on this page in the same place.

There are 4 letter “f’s” on a white background, a small keyboard below it with the letter f highlighted and two hands with the index finger on the left hand highlighted.

Now, before I practice any touch typing, let us click on the link for keyboard layout on the right hand side.

A new page loads.

There is a drop down box that gives us the option to change the keyboard- I think that the default setting is U.S. Standard.

When we click to change it, there are about 25 options to choose from.

Lots of European layouts are there, as well as a few Asian layouts. I will select the UK layout.

In order to get back to the lesson, I need to press the back button in my browser and press enter again.

You also have a choice to hide the keyboard as well but for the moment, I will keep it as I think that the highlighted letter is a good visual reference.

What I need to do is to zoom in on the page as it is too small and not very visually impaired friendly.

To do this I would normally just press my Ctrl key and the + key to get the objects on the page to the right size.

However these shortcuts don’t work because it expects you to press the letter j.

So, I am going to modify it via the menu at the top. It is not perfect but it does make things slightly better. I have a magnification level of 170%.

This lesson contains lots of letter f’s, in groups of three separated by a space. I am now going to complete this lesson.

When I click on continue I get a hints page- some written instructions about what I need to do next, combined with an animation of how to do it.

Press the enter key and the lesson page loads.

I have a screen with letters j and f following from the top of the screen randomly. I need to type the letter which is at the bottom of the screen.

As soon as you have completed the lesson, my statistics dashboard appears, showing my reward stars, words per minute, accuracy, time typing and my problem keys.

At the bottom of the page is a progress bar which shows you how many screens you have completed on your level and you can see that I have completed 4.

When I click on continue, I move to the next lesson with it’s hints page followed by the lesson.

So, what do I think of typing.com as a place to learn touch typing?

I think that the pros are; it is free, it has lots of levels, it is easy to use, you can track your progress by creating a free account, it has a nice design which can be magnified to make it more user friendly for people with visual impairments.

I think its major con is that it has ads running.

Thanks for watching my video tour of typing.com.

If this video has helped you, please share it with your friends, colleagues  and family.

I have created lots of other videos relating to touch typing and there is a link to my playlist below.

If you have any comments or questions or anything to add to the discussion, please leave them below.

End of Video Transcript

NVDA & Google Docs Accessibility

Hello. In this 9 minute video I demonstrate the Accessibility menu in Google Docs.

I use the screen reader NVDA and I focus on how to move around headers, graphics and links that are in a document.

The video includes a full set of subtitles but if you prefer to read a transcript, please find one below

Start of Video Transcript

Hello everyone. It is James from the Visual Impairment Team in Devon.

In this video I am going to demonstrate part of the Accessibility menu in Google Docs using the screen reader, NVDA.

Before I do anything else, we need to change the shortcut key that starts NVDA because the same shortcut is used a lot in Google Docs.

The standard shortcut key that starts NVDA is Ctrl + Alt + N.

So, to change the shortcut key, press Windows key and D to get on the desktop.

Now press the n key until we are on NVDA. Now press the shift and F10 keys in order to open the context menu .

Press r to open up “properties”, press alt and k in order to change the shortcut key and now press your new shortcut keys. I pressed Ctrl + Alt + V.

Google Docs is part of Google Drive- Google’s online storage system with a version of Microsoft Office built in.

In this video, I am using NVDA version 2016.3 and the Firefox browser on a Windows 10 laptop. Firefox is the recommended browser to use with NVDA and Google Docs.

Google Docs are very accessible which is fantastic news because it is free and can be accessed on lots of different devices.

The Accessibility menu is a menu that only appears on a Document when you enable screen reader support. Otherwise it stays hidden.

To enable screen reader support, have your screen reader running and then with a Google Doc on your screen, press the Ctrl, Alt and Z keys all together.

Your screen reader should say “screen reader support enabled.”

At the same time to the right of the Help menu at the top of your page, a new menu appears called Accessibility.

The Accessibility menu is there to help a screen reader user navigate and read a document.

When we open the accessibility menu there are 10 sub menus within it.

In today’s video I am going to look at the Headings, Graphics and links  sections in the menu.

I have recorded a couple of other videos about the speak and comments sections of the accessibility menu and you can find a link to those videos below.

NVDA has two modes; browse mode and focus mode. These modes enable us to access text in different ways.

You can toggle between browse mode and focus mode by pressing your NVDA key and the spacebar together. My NVDA key is the Insert key.

Make sure that NVDA is in browse mode. Press and release the NVDA key and the spacebar until you hear a beeping sound.

Let’s have a look at a very simple document which has some headings, graphics and links in it.

This article is about the US Open Tennis title.

To go to the next heading in this article, press Ctrl + Alt + N, then Ctrl + Alt + H which moves me forward through the article.

To go to the previous heading in this article, press Ctrl + Alt + P, then Ctrl + Alt + H which moves me backwards through the article.

To go to the next graphic in this article, press Ctrl + Alt + N, then Ctrl + Alt + G which moves me forward through the article.

To go to the previous graphic  in this article, press Ctrl + Alt + P, then Ctrl + Alt + G which moves me backwards through the article.

To go to the next link in this article, press Ctrl + Alt + N, then Ctrl + Alt + L which moves me forwards through the article.

To go to the previous link  in this article, press Ctrl + Alt + P, then Ctrl + Alt + L which moves me backwards through the article.

And as you might have spotted there is a definite structure in these shortcuts, which helps us remember them more easily.

All the shortcuts involve pressing Ctrl and Alt and then if we want to go to the next object in the document we press the N key.

If we want to go to the previous object, we press the P key.

Then if we are using headers we press H, Graphics we press G and links we press L.

And that’s it. Thanks for watching. 

End of Video Transcript

TypingStudy.com- Free Touch Typing Lessons

Hello. In this 8 minute video, I provide an overview of the website TypingStudy.com. It is a free website that provides free touch typing lessons, games and tests.

The video includes a full set of subtitles but if prefer to read from a transcript, please find one below.

Start of Video Transcript

Hello everyone. It is James from the Visual Impairment Team in Devon.

In this video I am going to demonstrate the website TypingStudy.com

Touch typing is the ability to type on a computer keyboard while looking at the computer screen.

It is the expertise of knowing where individual keys are and using all the fingers on both hands in order to type without having to look at the keyboard.

Touch typing is a lifeline for many people with visual impairments.

For sighted people, touch typing enables a person to work much faster on a computer.

For people with a visual impairment, touch typing is a big part of being able to use a computer more independently.

An added bonus of being able to touch type for people with or without a visual impairment is that their posture whilst working on a laptop or a desktop, will be better.

Touch typists tend to sit with straighter backs looking at the screen than non touch typists who are more hunched over looking at the keyboard.

TypingStudy.com is a website that contains free 15 lessons, a speed test and games all designed to help you improve your skills, but is it any good?

I am using Mozilla Firefox on a Windows 10 laptop, but this website should be accessible via Chrome or Microsoft Edge or on an Apple laptop.

Everything is web based which is great because there is no software to download and it can be accessed on many different devices.

A downside to this is that in order to access it you will always need the Internet- which is becoming less of a problem these days.

At the top of the page there is a brief description of the website and an explanation of touch typing.

Immediately below this are a huge range of different keyboard layouts that you can select from- about 105 by my reckoning!

These include all of the main US, UK and Europe keyboard layouts.

All the other parts of the website are accessed on the left hand side.

The first feature that I want to draw your attention to is the registration section, which is in the bottom left hand corner.

I think that this should be in a more prominent position.

The big advantage that registration brings is that by creating an account, you can monitor your progress and start where you left off.

If you don’t register then you will have to manually record your progress somehow and remember where you left off!

It takes about 2 minutes to register and when you do there is no email address to verify or any other steps like that.

As soon as you register, you are logged into the website and ready to go!

On the left hand side, all the different lessons are listed together with the speed test, typing test and games.

Let’s open up a lesson.

Each lesson is split into different drills or exercises and each drill have a specific letter or word focus.

In terms of the screen, right at the top you have the focus of the specific exercise and then below that you have an advert, which you can close by clicking in the top right corner.

Or alternatively, you can use an ad blocker to try and block all the ads on this page. I won’t be doing that in this video though.

Below the advert in tiny writing is your typing statistics- how many letters you have typed (and its percentage of the whole drill), the number of errors you have made, the time that it has taken you and your speed- expressed as words per minute.

In the next window are the letters or words that you need to type. The next letter that you need to type is highlighted in blue.

The window below that contains the letters or words that you have already typed.

Finally below this is the keyboard layout.

The next letter to type is highlighted in green together with a graphic showing the finger which you should use.

For a person with a visual impairment, I would say that this layout is a disaster. The contrast between the different colours is very poor. Also most of the important information- such as what letters you need to type is too small.

Fortunately, there is a workaround for anyone who has a visual impairment, which involves magnifying the screen by pressing the Ctrl and “+” keys together.

This will make some parts of the screen bigger but the tradeoff is that you won’t see other parts of the screen.

Try it and see. If you don’t like it, pressing the Ctrl key and the 0 key together will “reset” the screen.

That’s it. That is my quick tour of the touch typing website, typingstudy.com

If this video has helped you, please share it with your friends, colleagues  and family.

I have created lots of other videos relating to touch typing and there is a link to my playlist below.

If you have any comments or questions or anything to add to the discussion, please leave them below.

End of Video Transcript

11 Favourite Shortcuts That Use the NVDA key

Hello, this 10 minute video has the screen reader NVDA as its focus.

In the video, I demonstrate 11 shortcut keys that use the NVDA key.

The NVDA key is a special "turbo charged" shortcut key.

The video includes a full set of subtitles but if you would prefer to read a full transcript, then please find it below.

Start of Video Transcript

Hello everyone. It is James from the Visual Impairment Team in Devon.

In this video, I will quickly show you some of the most powerful shortcut keys that you can use with the NVDA modifier key or if you want to keep it simple, the NVDA key.

The NVDA key is a specific key that when pressed in combination with other keys performs various functions within the screen reader NVDA.

It’s like a shortcut key that is turbo charged.

In a previous video I demonstrated how to change your NVDA key.

In this video, I am using NVDA version 2016.3 and the Firefox browser on a Windows 10 laptop. My NVDA key is the extended insert key.

The first shortcut that I want to demonstrate is NVDA + a. This is the say all command that reads out all the text in a document from the current position onwards.

The second shortcut is “keyboard help”. You can turn this on and off by pressing the NVDA key and the number 1 key.

When it is turned on, NVDA is put into a help or assistant mode and every time you press a shortcut key, NVDA explains its function.

Whilst in the help mode, if I pressed the NVDA key and the A  key together, NVDA would tell me that pressing those two keys would read all command.

Because it is in the assistant mode, NVDA won’t actually read everything. It is just instructing you what to do!

After you have finished hearing about what different shortcut keys do, press the NVDA key and the number 1 key and you should hear “keyboard help off”.

The third shortcut is “speech mode”. This is the NVDA key and the S key. By pressing and releasing these keys, you toggle between “speech mode talk”, “speech mode beeps” and “speech mode off .”

The fourth shortcut that I want to explain is allows you to open up the NVDA menu. This is the NVDA + N key. This contains the preferences, tools and the help menu as the main elements.

The fifth shortcut key that I want to demonstrate enables you to decrease the voice rate. NVDA will speak at a slower pace. This is the Ctrl + NVDA + down arrow key.

The sixth shortcut key that I want to demonstrate enables you to increase the voice rate. NVDA will speak at a faster pace. This is the Ctrl + NVDA + up arrow key.

The seventh shortcut key that I want to demonstrate is NVDA + Space. The screen reader can toggle between two modes of interaction with a page- focus and browse.

Browse mode is best used when you are just reading from a document or a web page whereas focus mode is best used you need to input text into a document or spreadsheet.

Each mode has a distinct sound effect. The focus mode has the sound of a keyboard key being pressed and the browse mode has a beeping sound.

The eighth shortcut key that I want to demonstrate is NVDA + F7. This shortcut key can only be used on a webpage. It shows you all the elements (links, headers and landmarks) that a webpage has.

The ninth shortcut key that I want to demonstrate is NVDA + F12.

If you press these keys down once then the time will be read out and if you press them down twice the date will be read out.  

The tenth shortcut is NVDA + Shift + B. This will tell you the status of your battery. How much charge does it have and is it plugged in.

And my eleventh and final shortcut key is NVDA key and Q- this closes NVDA.

That’s it. Those are eleven of my favourite shortcuts using the NVDA key.

Thanks for watching my video.

If this video has helped you, please share it with your friends, colleagues  and family.

I have created lots of other videos relating to NVDA- a link to the playlist can be found in the description.

If you have any comments or questions or anything to add to the discussion, please leave them below.

End of Video Transcript. 

NVDA- How To Change Your Modifier Key

Hello in this 3 minute video, I talk you through how to change your modifier key in NVDA.

The modifier key is a turbo charged shortcut key that can be pressed with other keys in order to make NVDA do something, such as quit- which is NVDA key + Q!

My copy of NVDA uses the insert key but there are alternatives and in this video, I show you how.

The video comes with a full set of subtitles, but if you prefer to read from a transcript please find it below.

Start of Video Transcript

Hello, everyone. It is James from the Visual Impairment Team in Devon.

In this video, I will quickly show you how to change what key to use as your modifier key when using NVDA.

The NVDA modifier key is specific key on a user’s keyboard that when pressed together  with other keys, gets the screen reader to perform various functions.

It acts like a turbo charged shortcut key.

By default the NVDA key is set as the Insert key but you can change this by pressing the Control key and the Insert key and the K key all together.

A dialogue box appears which shows your options for your NVDA modifier key.

You have a choice of three options- either to use caps lock, the insert key on your number pad (which is only applicable to users with desktop keyboards) or the “extended insert” key.

Because I use it on a laptop, I have selected the “extended insert” key as my modifier.

If you want to change your modifier, then press TAB to scroll through the different options.

Once you have focused on the key that you are currently using, NVDA will read out “check box checked” press the spacebar. NVDA will say “not checked”.

Now TAB to key that you want to select and press the spacebar to select it.

Press enter to confirm the changes.

That’s it. You have changed your NVDA modifier key.

Thanks for watching my video demonstrating how to change the NVDA modifier key.  If this video has helped you, please share it with your friends, colleagues  and family.

I have created lots of other videos relating to NVDA- a link to the playlist can be found in the description.

If you have any comments or questions or anything to add to the discussion, please leave them below.

End of Video Transcript

NVDA: Keyboard Shortcuts To Read Text With

Hello. In this video which is almost 5 minutes long, I demonstrate the keyboard shortcuts that can be used with the screen reader NVDA in order to read text aloud.

I think all in all there are 16 shortcuts that I list in this video.

At the start of the video I also tell you how to check which keyboard setting NVDA is set to- laptop or desktop.

The video has a full set of subtitles with it, but if you would prefer to read from a full transcript, then find one below

Start of Video Transcript

Hello everyone. It is James from the Visual Impairment Team in Devon.

In this video I am going to demonstrate the shortcut keys that use can use in NVDA to read text.

NVDA can either be setup to work with a desktop style keyboard or a laptop style keyboard.

Depending on which one it is will change some of the keyboard shortcuts that we will need to read the text.

If you are unsure, then you can check what your setup is by pressing the NVDA key and the N key together- mine is the insert key.

Then press P for preferences and k for keyboard settings.

Mine is set to laptop.

To switch between desktop or laptop, press the up arrow or the down arrow.

Then press the enter button.

So now let me run through some of the keyboard commands for reading text with NVDA.

I will be demonstrating the keyboard shortcuts for a laptop but I will talk you through the keyboard shortcuts for a desktop as well.

There are four levels that NVDA can read text on a page or in a document. They are line, sentence, word and character.

Line

To read out the current line of text, on your laptop press the NVDA key + Shift key + the . key. To do this on your desktop, press number pad 8.

To read out the next line of text, on your laptop press the NVDA key and the down arrow. To do this on your desktop, press number pad 9.

To read out the previous line of text, on your laptop press the NVDA key and the up arrow. To do this on your desktop, press number pad 7.

To read out the top line of text on your laptop press the NVDA key + Control key + Home key and if you are using a desktop keyboard you need to press the Shift key and the number pad 7 key.

To read out the bottom line of the text, on your laptop press the NVDA key and the Control key and the End key. To do this on your desktop press the shift key and number pad 9 key.

Sentence

I could be wrong but when it comes to reading out sentences you use the same shortcuts on a desktop keyboard as you do on a laptop keyboard.

To read out the current sentence press the Alt key + the . key.

To read out the next sentence, press the Alt key +  the down arrow.

To read out the previous sentence, press the Alt key and the up arrow.

Word

To read the current word on your laptop press the NVDA key and the Control key and the . key. To do this on your desktop, press number pad 5.

To read out the next word, on your laptop press the NVDA key and the Control key and the right arrow key. To do this on your desktop, press number pad 6.

To read out the previous word, on your laptop press the NVDA key and the Control key and the left arrow key. To do this on your desktop, press number pad 4.

Character

To read out the current character, on your laptop press the NVDA key +  . key. To do this on your desktop, press number pad 2.

To read out the next character, on your laptop press the NVDA key and the right arrow. To do this on your desktop, press number pad 3.

To read out the previous character, on your laptop press the NVDA key and the left arrow. To do this on your desktop, press number pad 1.

And finally to read everything out from where the review cursor is on your laptop press the NVDA key and the shift key and the a key. To do this on your desktop, press number pad + key.

And that is it!

Thanks for watching my video demonstrating the keyboard shortcuts that allow the screen reader NVDA to read out text from documents.  

If you have any comments or questions or anything to add to the discussion, please leave them below.

End of Video Transcript

Tabtiles: Making Your Tab Titles Easier To Read

Hello and welcome to this video. In this video I demonstrate how a free Chrome extension makes the text in our Title Tabs easier to see.

The video includes a full set of subtitles.

If you would prefer to read from a full transcript of the video, you can find one below.

Start of Video Transcript

Hello everyone. It is James from the Visual Impairment Team in Devon.

In this video I am going to discuss a common problem for people who have a visual impairment or for those of us who are just reaching that age where our eyesight is getting worse and we struggle to read the title text in our Tabs.

What do I mean by Title text? It is the writing that is at the top of the tab, which many users find frustratingly small.

So let’s have a look at this issue. This is the title text in the Tabs- it tells us what specific web page we are on.

So this is the title text here it says that we are on the homepage of the BBC and here we’ve got the Independent and here we’ve got a website called Lifehacker.

And it is very small, don’t you think?

I am using the Chrome web browser here but  it is the same in all the browsers- So if we look in Microsoft Edge here’s our titles, the same web pages and the same very small writing in them. And here Firefox- the same web pages show the same things.

Let’s go back to Chrome.  

Magnifying the page by pressing the Ctrl and the + key does not work. So you can see as the webpage itself gets bigger- the photos, videos and text on the web page get bigger nothing happens to the title. So that is not a solution.  

And the solution that I want to demonstrate for you today is a free add on for your Chrome web browser.

I shall show you how to download it in a minute but let me demonstrate it first.

Now the add on is called Tabtiles and what is does is it displays in large yellow buttons our tab titles that can be positioned at the top or bottom of your screen which I think makes them far easier to see.

And you can see the titles of our tabs in the yellow buttons at the top of our screen here. Not only are they easier to see but we can easily move between these different web pages using our left and right arrows like so.

And you can see here that I am moving between the BBC page the Independent page and the Lifehacker page just using my left and right arrow keys.

Now, I don’t think that this add on is perfect but I do think that it is better than the standard style of title.

So now let me show you where to download this add on from. As I said, it is a free add on that takes seconds to download.

Here we are at the Chrome Web Store and here’s the address up here and then once there we search for “Tabtiles” and this is the extension here. We just click on the blue button “Add to Chrome” and then we prompt it again to add extension and then it loads up it’s option page and here it is up here in the top of Chrome.

And it is as simple as that. My solution to making the titles in our tabs easier to see.

Thanks for watching this video. Do you struggle with this issue? What is your workaround? Please let me know in the comments below.

End of Video Transcript