Web Accessibility Research Blog

A great way to test to see if your web page is accessible is to use a screen reader to try it out.  WebAIM has a great article about using a screen reader to test accessibility. One of the goals of our WebAnywhere project is to provide a low-cost, self-voicing web browser web application.  That's a mouthful.  Basically, we want anyone to be able to come to a web page and have that web page provide all the functionality that they need to browser other web pages.  One of the uses of this will be to provide web developers with a low-cost way to see if their sites are accessible.  As a "side benefit," we'll also be enabling access to the web for blind users from the huge number of computers that lack a traditional (expensive) screen reader.

I don't normally use a screen reader, but I've observed many people using one over the past few years. Initially I was amazed by how incredibly fast experienced screen reader users are able to navigate between open windows and get things done. Because most screen reader users don't use a mouse, they are forced to learn the keyboard commands and end up being much more efficient than someone that remains a slave to the mouse. Surprisingly, most of this keyboard functionality is available in regular old versions of windows. It's incredibly useful and can make anyone a more efficient computer user.

The first step is to learn the keyboard commands for getting around in Windows. These range from using ALT-TAB to switch between current windows to the using combinations of CTRL, SHIFT and the arrow keyes to navigate and select within text editing windows. Microsoft has a comprehensive summary on shortcut keys to navigate windows here: Microsoft Guide to Windows Shortcuts. And a good article on using keys once in a program is located here: Mr. Hope's Guide to Shortcut Keys.

The next step is replacing the mouse altogether. For instance, did you know that SHIFT-F10 simulates a right click? For more useful information, check out the keyboard alternatives for using a mouse here: eHow's Guide to Keyboard Alternatives to the Mouse.

Follow these guidelines and you'll be surfing as fast as a screen reader user in no time!

-- Jeffrey P. Bigham