Basic Web Page Access using Jaws screenreader

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Searching the Internet using Jaws.

If one of your students has to search the internet using Jaws, you can avoid a miserable and frustrating first time experience by using the open source encyclopedia called wikipedia.  Wiki projects are expanding all the time, there is an online dictionary called wiktionary, and a virtual library called wikibooks, plus a vast array of other wikis.
 
This is a very basic get you started without pulling your hair out tutorial.  Jaws is the finest piece of screenreading software avaiable in my opinion BUT you must know how to use it properly or you are going to get VERY frustrated VERY quickly unless you have a good tutorial to get you started.

A word about Wikis

Wikis are generally open source projects, an open source project being one which anyone can edit, so if you find a page with inaccuracies, or you know a bit about the subject and want to help other human beings, you can add your information.  I can hear you thinking that the pages cannot be very accurate if anyone can edit them, however my experience of wikis, suggests them to be an accurate and very accessible source of information for students who are blind or partially sighted, far more accessible than the rest of the Internet!

Technical Stuff

The tutorial was done using a laptop which had Jaws 4.51 set up to use the Function keys (this bit is important because Jaws default is to use the Number keypad so you have to change it in the Options menu or my tutorial won't work), and the software was Windows 2000 with Office 2000.   

Opening a browser

Start by hitting the “Windows” key (that is the key with the little flag icon on it), and Jaws will say “Start Menu”, now hit the letter “P” for the programs sub menu and it will probably say “Accessories sub menu”, next hit the letter “I” until it says “Internet Explorer”, now hit the “Enter” key, your browser will open and Jaws will start telling you about your home page.

Locating a page

The first thing is to enter the web address so hold down the “Alt” key + “d” and Jaws will say “address edit combo” now enter the address www.wikipedia.org  If you need to check what you typed, hold down “Insert” + “Up” arrow, if you need to spell it, hold down “Insert” + “Up” arrow twice.

Bringing up links

Wikipedia is available in a vast array of languages, I am going to assume you require the English version. To get a list of links hold down “Insert” + “F7”  Jaws will say “Links list dialog” you can either use the up and down arrows to go through the links or if you have an idea of which letter your required link begins with hit that.  We want the link “English” so keep hitting “E” till Jaws says “English” and then hit the “Enter” key.  The English version of wiki will now open and Jaws will start describing the page, we want to search the encyclopedia so get Jaws to be quiet by hitting the “Control” key.

Jumping to the search box

Depending on which version of Jaws you are using the shortcut key for this bit may be different. However try this first. We are going to search the encyclopedia, so jump straight to the search box by hitting “Control”+”Insert”+”Home” or by tapping "F", Jaws will say “Insert plus F edit”. Now hit the “Enter” key and Jaws will say “Insert plus F edit, forms mode on, type in text”. Forms mode allows you to enter text from the keyboard, if you try typing when forms mode is not on you will get very frustrated as most of the keys won't work!
For the purposes of this tutorial I want you to search for “Hedgehogs” and then hit the “Enter” key.
A page about hedgehogs will open, you can either sit and listen or you can navigate the page using the next part of the tutorial.

Navigating the page.

Page navigation can be done in various ways because once you encounter a web page Jaws makes your life easier by turning the keyboard  from text entry into a navigation aide. You can navigate a page  in various ways however we are going to explore using the following commands,  paragraph, table and heading.

Navigating headings

You will notice that as you the page about Hedgehogs opens, Jaws will say “Forms mode off” , before it starts to describe the structure of the page. Get it to be quiet by hitting the “Control” key.  The most basic way is to navigate by headings.  Every page in Wiki is structured in a sensible orderly fashion, so that the search procedure is the same regardless of what subject you are researching. To go through a page a heading at a time is fairly painless, simply keep tapping the letter “H” to jump to the next heading.  To go back do “Shift” + “H” (as you would go back through lists with shift + tab).  Level 1 headings are the largest and most important, Level 2 headings are sub headings and generally describe the contents of that page. 

We start with the level 1 heading “Hedgehog”,  tap “H” again and you will hear “From Wikipedia level 3”, this is always after the initial heading. By tapping “H” slowly,  you will go through the following headings “Contents – Level 2,  European Hedgehog – Level 2, Domesticated Hedgehog – Level 2, Pest Control – Level 2, Hedgehog diseases – Level 2, History – Level 2, List of species – Level 2, Similar species – Level 2, and finally External links – Level 2”.  Once you get to external links you are at the bottom of the wikipage, remember to use “Shift + H” to go back to the top.

Bringing up a list of headings

You can also see what headings are on the page by hitting “Insert” + “F6”.   This brings up a headings dialog box which can be navigated either by using the up and down arrow keys or by hitting the first letter of a known heading name.  Once you have selected the required heading, hit the enter key.

Reading paragraphs

Information is generally better taken in, in small chunks.  Therefore to read the page a paragraph at a time hit the letter “P”.   Start by going to the top of the page, the bit where it says “Hedgehog – heading level 1”, now tap “P” for paragraph and before you get to the text bit of the page Jaws will take you to the picture and description of the subject, hence if you keep tapping “P” and listening to what Jaws tells you, it will eventually say “Link graphic, European hedgehog” (This is good because all the images on wiki are labelled, otherwise it would just say link graphic).  Next Jaws will take you to a classification table with lots of Latin sounding names. Keep hitting “P” and you will pass through the table and get into the basic description of a hedgehog.  To go back paragraph by paragraph do “Shift + p”.

Recap:  You have now learnt a basic way to navigate through a web page, to recap “h” will take you through and read headings as they appear on the page. “Shift + h” will take you back.  When you get to a heading you think will prove interesting hit “p” to read paragraph by paragraph.

Slightly more advanced stuff

Bear in mind that we are still only using a single web page so this is not earth shattering stuff.  However you have already encountered a table within this wiki page, sighted people like using tables and lists as they are a very visual way of arranging information into catagories, Jaws can handle table navigation fairly easily.

Navigating tables

Tables are arranged in columns and rows, rows go horizontally and columns vertically, the hardest thing, is working out how the information has been arranged. Generally speaking each column will have a heading and everything below that heading is part of that headings classification.

To find a table within a page, hit “T” for table, it should respond “Row 1, column 1, kingdom”  to move to the next table hit “T” again, it should respond “no more tables found”.   To get an idea of what the table is about hit the “Up” arrow, it will respond  “table with two columns and six rows”, hit up arrow again until it responds “Scientific Classification” which is the title of the table. 

Now you have an idea of what the table is about, hit the down arrow again until it responds “table with two columns and six rows”.  Read the first and current row by hitting “R” for row, to read the next row hit “Windows key + down arrow”.  
To go back up the table use “Windows key + up arrow”. 
You can also navigate tables by columns, use the up arrow until it responds “kingdom”, hit “C” for column and it will respond by reading the column “Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Subfamily” to read the next column hit “Control”
Finally you will either need to go back to previous tables, by hitting “Shift” + “T” or  to escape altogether from tables mode hit “E”.

Summary of table commands:

Tables

Finding a table – hit “T”               
Finding next table – hit “T” again
Go to previous table – hit “Shift + T”

Rows

Read current row – hit “R”               
Read next row – "Windows key + down arrow"
Read previous row - "Windows key + up arrow"

Columns

Read current column – hit “C”
To go to the column on the right – Left “Control” + right arrow
Read column to cell – Left shift + “C”
Read column from cell – Right shift + “C”

Using the information.

It is all very well surfing the net, but how can you use the information to best effect.
Copying and pasting is the answer.  Once you find a portion of text that sounds interesting, you first have to select it.  Do this by holding down the “Shift” key and tapping the “down” arrow, this has the effect of selecting text line by line.  Once the text has been selected you can copy it by doing “Ctrl + C”.  Now open up Word or some other wordprocessor, and paste it into your new document by doing “Ctrl + V”.  You will have to tidy the text up a bit, hopefully you will have some sort of Braille terminal attached, so that you can work out the layout of your document, a Braille terminal being a necessity, not a luxury as less enlightened Education Authorities would have you believe.

In summary, I hope you have found this a useful get started guide, as someone famous once said; “The longest journey begins with a single step” so have a go and let me know how you get on. If you want to start grabbing images and using them have a look at my ECDL ICT Tutorial page.  If you want to help with the ECDL module guides, you can contact me, Andy Spong either by phone at the Educational Service for Hearing and Vision in Hull, 01482 331 407 or by email.  The email address is on the "About Me" page.