Blog Post

Shortcuts - Easy Assistance

Kathryn Evans • Sep 13, 2019

Remembering how things used to be done is useful.

3.5
A teacher posted this week that they had taken a floppy disk into a lesson and some bright spark had piped up "cor Sir has had the save icon 3D printed".  Having a broader knowledge of computing as well as expert knowledge of the software we teach is a real advantage when training.  Often we come across users who find using the mouse or trackpad difficult, it may cause them pain or their trackpad might be plain weird to use (I do often suggest they might find a mouse better).  We also deal with visually impaired users who find the mouse or trackpad difficult or completely useless, if you are totally blind then point and click means nothing.

Thats where the shortcuts come in, in the days before Windows we learned lots of commands to use the computer, and we we first started using windows we were still using a lot of these shortcuts within programs.  Lotus 123 was a popular spreadsheet program and worked off a series of slash key commands.  We also knew how to close programs and access menus without using the mouse, it was easier than moving your hands off the keyboard.  In the early days of the Internet it was common for people in chat rooms to tell a new user to press Alt + F4, the new user would duly try it and find they had closed the program, Alt + F4 closes the window you are working in.

As I work with visually impaired users I find myself looking up those shortcuts more often, then when I see them I realise I needn't have looked them up as they are all stored in my memory banks.  The Alt key shows keyboard shortcuts in office programs with a ribbon.  Alt + F makes the file menu open, then you will notice items on the menu have a letter underlined, pressing that letter performs that action.  For example Alt + F then X will exit the program.  

I don't know when I stopped using most of these shortcuts but I did.  Now I find myself relearning them and teaching them as an assistive tool.  I've learned a few new ones too, such as how to split the screen with shortcuts, a mouse action my clients often find confusing.  As I seemed to be often teaching them to clients I made some business cards with the common ones on the reverse to leave with my clients.  

Common Shortcuts
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Common Shortcuts
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JAWS Certified, 2019
by Kathryn Evans 20 Aug, 2019
Although the vast majority of our users have learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, we also train people with various other needs. Visually impaired and blind users are well looked after by Wiki-ed as we can train them on software such as dolphin SuperNova and JAWS. Todays learner was using JAWS. Typically he had used the software before, in this case for many years but he wanted to know how to do specific tasks and find ways of easing his working whilst he studied. When we get a learner like this we ask them to send a list before each session of what they are looking to do. Software such as JAWS is extremely complex to use and requires the memorising of keyboard shortcuts, some of which are familiar to most computer users. We rarely come across users who don't know that copy is CTRL+C and paste is CTRL+V (or CMD for Mac users), but JAWS users learn so many more keystrokes, some specific to JAWS but many are just general Windows or software shortcuts. One of the things todays trainee wanted to learn was how to make notes when "reading" (JAWS does the reading) a book which has been converted to a Word document. Thats where the split screen came in. When a blind person uses the computer they frequently end up with a lot of windows open, they may look something up then look at a document and they have left their web browser open, and their email. That makes switching from one document to another quite time consuming as they will have to cycle through the list of open windows. By splitting the screen they can simply press Alt+Tab to move between the left and right windows. The Shortcut Despite our knowing a LOT of shortcut keys, as well as how to work with JAWS this one had me stumped. When I work with learners I show nearly every one of them how to split a screen in Windows, by using the mouse. I've actually shown a visually impaired user before how to do it and it was a struggle for her as when you do it you have to look for a "shadow" on the screen to know its going in the right place and that shadow is not easy to see if you are visually impaired. A bit of googling found a possible solution, but it was listed for Windows 7 so I just had to hope it still worked (I'm a mac user so couldn't try it!) . Its a simple keystroke Windows Key+Left Arrow puts current window to left half of screen Windows Key+Right Arrow puts current window to right half of screen Not only did it help our blind trainee, later on I had another trainee who is not confident with computers and I think using the shortcut is actually easier than using the mouse. I also completed my JAWS certification today, so if you choose Wiki-ed for your JAWS training you can be confident you will get the best from your training experience.
man using headset with computer
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