NVDA: Using Shortcut Keys to Navigate Around a Bing Results Page

Hello. In this video, I show you how to access and understand a Bing results page using the free screen reader NVDA.

Although there is lots of information on these results pages, you can access the most important information using only a few keyboard shortcuts.

The video is nearly 16 minutes long but it does come with a full set of subtitles. However, if you prefer to access the video via a full transcript, then find one below

Start of Video Transcript

Hello and welcome to this video.

In this video I want to use NVDA to perform a Bing search.

But just in case you are unfamiliar with NVDA and screen readers, let me just introduce them.

NVDA is a free screen reader.

A screen reader is a great piece of software that gives computers, smartphones and tablets a voice in order to help people who have a visual impairment or who are blind access these devices more independently.

I have created other videos about the screen reader NVDA and I have grouped them together in a playlist which I will link to below.

A piece of technical information is that I am recording this video on a laptop running Windows 10 and my version of NVDA is 2016.1.

The process should be the same if you are using Windows 7 or 8 and if you are using a different version of NVDA- as long as it is fairly recent.

Let’s turn NVDA on.

I will press the Windows Key and the D key in order to access my desktop.

Now I will press the N key in order to select NVDA and then I press enter.

Open up the browser that you use most frequently. I will use Firefox. I open it by pressing the “m” key then the enter key.

If you are not already on Bing, Press Control and L in order to focus on the address bar. Type in “bing.com”

Bing should load. NVDA should say something like “enter you search term combo box has auto complete editable”.

Essentially this tells us that the Bing page has loaded and that we should enter our search term and that the search term can be edited and that “auto complete” is available. Auto complete means that as soon as you start typing, suggestions for what you might be searching for.

Now type in your search query. I will type in “world war 2”. NVDA repeats each letter as I type.

A Bing Results page like a great many other web pages, contains lots of information and it can be quite intimidating to the novice NVDA user.

A Bing results page loads and as it is doing that, NVDA repeats what your search is. It also says that it is busy (as it is still loading the page.)

NVDA continues with banner landmark, navigation, navigation landmark list with six items link web link images, link videos, link maps, link news link explore out of list”

Link heading level one bing edit world war 2 button submit query.

So let us analyse all of that bit by bit.

Web pages are divided up into many, many different elements. Landmarks are a way of dividing up web pages in order to help visually impaired users who are using screen readers.

The banner landmark is just the Bing logo graphic.

Web pages have many different types of content in them. The landmark list of links is the set of six links at the top of the page that toggles the results between these different content; web, images, video, maps and news.

The link heading level one bing edit world war 2 button submit query, tells you that the focus of the page is our search term “World War 2” and if we pressed enter now then we could edit it.

Each search result on the page is defined as a header and so the easiest way to move between the different results is to press the h key.

Beware because the first few times that you press h you will move between different adverts.

The h key moves from one heading on the page to the next. The first real result is from Wikipedia and so the heading for this result is read out.

Each result is composed of three elements. A heading (which is the description of a webpage in relation to our search), a link to the webpage and a 20- 30 word extract from the page.

If you just want to move quickly between the different results, then you can keep pressing the h key and NVDA will read out the heading for each result.

If however, you want to find out more about the link and the extract for each result then after you get to the result that you want to explore (by pressing the h key) press the down arrow once and the link will be read out and press the down arrow once more to hear the extract.

If you want to visit the webpage of a particular result then press the enter key after you have pressed the h key, like so.

A web page will only load if the heading of the result is the focus upon. It will not load if you are focused on the link or the extract like so.

Also if you have accidentally skipped past a result by pressing the h key too many times, then you can move backwards through each heading by pressing the shift and h key together.

Now sometimes, we need to look at the next results page. For our sighted users, we would go to the bottom of the page where there are a list of numbers followed by an image of an arrow.

The best way that I have found to do this using NVDA is to press the Insert key and the F7 key together which loads the Elements menu and then press the Alt key and the d key in order to get a list of the page landmarks.

Press the TAB key until it says “tree view” Now press your down arrow until NVDA says “navigation navigation ”. Press the enter key. Now press your right arrow key in order to load the next results page. NVDA will say “out of link, link 2”. Press the enter key to load the page.

If at this point you press the control key and the enter key, page 2 of the results for “World War 2” will load in a separate tab.

On the new results page, press the h key two or three times in order to get to the first result on this page.

You might want to watch or listen to this video a few times in order to grow your confidence as there is a lot of information to absorb!

Remember, If you have any questions or difficulties after watching this video, or want to join in with the discussion please do so below.

How do you use NVDA to navigate a Bing results page? Let me know.

Thanks for watching.

End of Video Transcript

NVDA: Navigating Around a Dialogue Box

In this 11 minute video I show you how to navigate around a dialogue box using the screen reader NVDA.

I show you all the keyboard shortcuts that you need in order to access all of the important features of any dialogue box for when you are opening files and folders or saving files.

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

Start of Video Transcript

Hello and welcome to this video.

In this video I want to demonstrate how to navigate around a dialogue box using NVDA.

But just in case you are unfamiliar with NVDA and screen readers, let me just introduce them.

NVDA is a free screen reader.

A screen reader is a great piece of software that gives computers, smartphones and tablets a voice in order to help people who have a visual impairment or who are blind access these devices more independently.

I have created other videos about the screen reader NVDA and I have grouped them together in a playlist which I will link to below.

A piece of technical information is that I am recording this video on a laptop running Windows 10 and my version of NVDA is 2016.1

The process should be the same if you are using Windows 7 or 8 and if you are using a different version of NVDA- as long as it is fairly recent.

Let’s turn NVDA on.

I will press the Windows Key and the D key in order to access my desktop.

Now I will press the N key in order to select NVDA and then I press enter.

So before we start, let me clarify what I mean by a dialogue box.

A dialogue box is a box that appears on your screen when you instruct your PC to so something- such as save a document, open a document, or search for a document.

There are many more actions that we take that will cause a dialogue box to appear and so they are a regular feature of our computer lives.

Luckily for us, all dialogue boxes have the same structure even if their contents are different- and they do always seem to be full to the brim of files and folders.

On the screen now is a dialogue box that I has appeared after I pressed the control key and the s key in order to save a document.

NVDA reads out the type of box “Save As” dialogue before then quickly telling you where the cursor is focused “file name” and it provides some other details

Now the same thing happens if I want to open a file by pressing the control key and the o key.

NVDA reads out the type of box “Open” dialogue before then quickly telling you where the cursor is focused “file name” and it provides some other details.

This demonstrates that dialogue boxes have consistent structures.

Now there are many different areas within a dialogue box that you will need to access at one point or another.

And you can access the different parts of the dialogue box by pressing the TAB key which will take you forwards through each part of the box in turn or you can use Shift and TAB to go backwards through each part of the box in turn.

There are 10 elements to a dialogue box and they are; file name box , files as type box , open button, cancel button, address documents toolbar, search box, organize button, tree view, items list and name header.

So let’s have a look at the different parts.

The file name combo box is the name of the file that you want to open or save. It is labelled as a combo box because you can choose from a variety of suggested locations.. To access these options press your down arrow key.

Pressing TAB again takes us to the “Files As Type” box. Again this is a combo box because there are different file types to choose from. NVDA will read out the different file types. To access these options, press your down arrow key.

Pressing TAB again gets us to the “Open” button. NVDA describes this as a split button because if you press your down arrow then you are given a choice between opening two different versions of documents. If I am honest I am not quite sure what the difference between these two choices is!

Pressing TAB again takes us to the Cancel button. If you press Enter at this point, the dialogue box closes, like so…

Pressing TAB again it takes us to “address, documents toolbar”. This tells us the location of the files that we are accessing on the computer. I am currently in the “documents” folder. If you press your down arrow, a menu expands displaying other locations to access documents from on your PC, such as the desktop.

Pressing the TAB takes us to the search box. You can search for a file in the current location.

Pressing TAB again takes us to the “organize” button on the “command module toolbar”. Pressing the down arrow gives us access to changing the physical layout of the box, by choosing to display a details, preview and navigation pane. The default layout just displays the navigation pane.

Pressing TAB again takes us into “tree view” or a detailed view of all the different folders within “This PC”. This tree view essentially gives a much more detailed look at files and folders than is possible from the address bar, that we accessed earlier.

Pressing TAB again takes us to “items view list” which gives us access to individual files and folders.

A final press of the TAB takes us into a header, of file names in which we can sort out the files into alphabetised lists, which I don’t need to do as I have so few files!

And that is it. My detailed overview of how to access a dialogue box with NVDA.

If you have any questions or difficulties after watching this video, or want to join in with the discussion please do so below.

What parts of a dialogue box do you tend to access the most? Let me know.

Thanks for watching.

End of video transcript

NVDA: Navigating a Google Results Page

Hello. In this 12 minute video I demonstrate how to navigate around a Google results page when using the screen reader, NVDA.

The video is full of all the different shortcut keys that you will need in order to make this difficult task easier.

The video includes a full set of subtitles but if you would like to access the video from a full transcript of the video, find one below.

Start of video transcript

Hello and welcome to this video.

In this video I want to use NVDA to perform a Google search.

But just in case you are unfamiliar with NVDA and screen readers, let me just introduce them.

NVDA is a free screen reader.

A screen reader is a great piece of software that gives computers, smartphones and tablets a voice in order to help people who have a visual impairment or who are blind access these devices more independently.

I have created other videos about the screen reader NVDA and I have grouped them together in a playlist which I will link to below.

A piece of technical information is that I am recording this video on a laptop running Windows 10 and my version of NVDA is 2016.1.

The process should be the same if you are using Windows 7 or 8 and if you are using a different version of NVDA- as long as it is fairly recent.

Let’s turn NVDA on.

I will press the Windows Key and the D key in order to access my desktop.

Now I will press the N key in order to select NVDA and then I press enter.

Open up the browser that you use most frequently. I will use Firefox. I open it by pressing the “m” key then the enter key.

If you are not already on Google, Press Control and L in order to focus on the address bar. Type in “google.co.uk”

Google should load and your cursor should be in the search bar. If not just press enter.

Now type in your search query. I will type in “world war 2”

A google Results page like a great many other web pages, contains lots of information and it can be quite intimidating to the novice NVDA user.

A Google results page loads and as it is doing that, NVDA repeats what your search is. It also tells you of other important content on the page. That there is a collapsed link for Google Apps and a link to sign in.

It then tells us “search landmark heading level 1 link graphic Google button Google search edit World War 2”

That is a lot of information, so let us go through it bit by bit.

The collapse link is this icon in the top right hand corner.

The link to sign in is also in the right hand corner.

The graphic and the Google search button and in the top left hand corner of the page and it tells us edit World War 2 because that is our search term and if at this point we press the enter key, the cursor appears in the box and we can change our search term. But I am not going to do that!

Now each Google results page contains 10 results.

To get to the first result, press your “h” key  two or three times.

The h key moves from one heading on the page to the next. The first result is from Wikipedia and so the heading for this result is read out.

Each result is composed of three elements. A heading (which is the description of a webpage in relation to our search), a link to the webpage and a 20- 30 word extract from the page.

If you just want to move quickly between the different results, then you can keep pressing the h key and NVDA will read out the heading for each result.

If however, you want to find out more about the link and the extract for each result then after you get to the result that you want to explore (by pressing the h key) press the down arrow once and the link will be read out and press the down arrow once more to hear the extract.

If you want to visit the webpage of a particular result then press the enter key after you have pressed the h key, like so.

A web page will only load if the heading of the result is the focus upon. It will not load if you are focused on the link or the extract like so.

Also if you have accidentally skipped past a result by pressing the h key too many times, then you can move backwards through each heading by pressing the shift and h key together.

Now sometimes, we need to look at the next results page. For our sighted users, we would go to the bottom of the page where there is the Google logo with lots of letter “o’s” in it and below that are some numbers- page numbers of different results.

To  and so the best way that I have found to do in NVDA is to press the Insert key and the F7 key together which loads the Elements menu and then press the Alt key and the d key in order to get a list of the page landmarks. Now press your down arrow until NVDA says “navigation”. Press the enter key.

Press your right arrow until NVDA says “out of link, link 2” which is page 2 of results.

If at this point you press the control key and the enter key, page 2 of the results for “World War 2” will load in a separate tab.

On the new results page, press the h key three times in order to get to the first result on this page.

You might want to watch or listen to this video a few times in order to grow your confidence as there is a lot of information to absorb!

Remember, If you have any questions or difficulties after watching this video, or want to join in with the discussion please do so below.

How do you use NVDA to navigate a Google results page? Let me know.

Thanks for watching.

End of video transcript

NVDA: Navigating The Desktop

Hello. In this video, which is just over 5 minutes long, I show you how to navigate the desktop of your PC, using the screen reader NVDA. This video is full of helpful shortcuts!

The video includes a full set of subtitles but if you would prefer to access the video by reading from a transcript. please find it below.

Start of video transcript

Hello and welcome to this video.

In this video I want to demonstrate how to navigate around the desktop using NVDA.

But just in case you are unfamiliar with NVDA and screen readers, let me just introduce them.

NVDA is a free screen reader.

A screen reader is a great piece of software that gives computers, smartphones and tablets a voice in order to help people who have a visual impairment or who are blind access these devices more independently.

I have created other videos about the screen reader NVDA and I have grouped them together in a playlist which I will link to below.

A piece of technical information is that I am recording this video on a laptop running Windows 10 and my version of NVDA is 2016.1.

The process should be the same if you are using Windows 7 or 8 and if you are using a different version of NVDA- as long as it is fairly recent.

Let’s turn NVDA on.

I will press the Windows Key and the D key in order to access my desktop.

Now I will press the N key in order to select NVDA and then I press enter.

If you already have NVDA on, press Windows key and the D key in order to focus on the desktop.

In order to move around the desktop you can either use your arrow keys which will select each icon on the desktop in order, like this.

I am pressing my up, down and right and left arrows as I do this.

Now this is a great option if you are on a PC with an unfamiliar layout. It gives you the chance to take a tour around the desktop to see what it contains.

Or alternatively, you can move around a familiar desktop using the initial letters of the icons or apps, like so.

This is a probably the fastest way of navigating the desktop.

Interestingly, if you are using initial letters to move around the desktop and there is more than one icon or app that has that initial letter, NVDA will rotate through each app that has the initial letter in turn.

Just remember how many times you need to press the letter in order to get to your desired app or icon.

If you want to select apps on the desktop that have the same initial letter, you might want to try typing in the initial letter and the second letter of the app name so that the app will be selected faster.

What is interesting here is that this process of moving around the desktop using your arrow keys or using initial letters, works even when NVDA is turned off.

Which is a great tip for faster ways to work for people who don’t have a visual impairment.

If you have any questions or difficulties after watching this video, or want to join in with the discussion please do so below.

Do you move around your desktop using your arrow keys or initial letters? Let me know.

Thanks for watching.

End of video transcript