In this episode, Shaun Preece discusses the importance of accessibility features in Windows and demonstrates how to access and use the Ease of Access Center.
In this episode, Shaun Preece discusses the importance of accessibility features in Windows and demonstrates how to access and use the Ease of Access Center.
In this episode, Shaun Preece discusses the importance of accessibility features in Windows and demonstrates how to access and use the Ease of Access Center.
He explores various options under the Vision, Hearing, and Interaction categories, such as text size, visual effects, mouse pointer customization, magnifier, color filters, contrast themes, narrator, captions, speech recognition, keyboard shortcuts, mouse keys, and eye tracking.
This is the final episode of Shaun of the Shed, but fret not as Shaun previews the upcoming season of Double Tap on YouTube.
Highlights:
Double Tap Canada - AMI+, YouTube
More on Windows Ease of Access Center
- [Presenter] "Shaun of the shed," an a AMI original podcast.
- Hello and welcome back to another episode of, "Shaun of the shed," This is the show where we talk tech and how useful it can be if you're blind or visually impaired, like me.
How's everyone doing? Hope you're doing well.
Now today's episode, like a few I've done recently actually comes about after a social media post. I saw a post and interacted with someone who said that a family member of theirs had recently lost a lot of vision, and to be honest, they just didn't know where to start when it came to technology and that's something we can all relate to, I'm sure.
In fact, this is the whole reason of me being here, is to show people what's available, how we can use a computer, use a smartphone or whatever it may be, and what a difference it can make.
But it came to my attention that people sometimes just, that initial vision loss, people just don't know where to go, it's so difficult. And yes, I have gone into specifics in the past. if you go back to my audio only days before this here glamorous YouTube in your favorite podcast app, search for, "Shaun of the shed," I've shown how to use the built-in tools in Windows, such as Narrator and Voiceover on the Mac or magnification, but they are very individual.
I mean, how do you even know what you need? It's not just totally blind or sighted, it's a spectrum. The longest time I was using magnification, large mouse pointers, bigger text, it's not quite as simple saying, well, I need a screen reader, or I need a magnifier. Sometimes there's a combination of all of these things. So what I've decided to do after that interaction I had was show you a very useful area of windows and it's called ease of access.
It's a group of settings of accessibility features that are built into Windows and it's just one place, one shop, one area that you can go to and try all of these things out, have a look through, browse what's available, rather than having to know, okay, I need a magnification or I need a screen reader, or I need this. If you're just starting out and you don't know actually what you need or what's available on your computer, it's a great place just to have a look through and try things out.
So that's why I'm gonna show you. On Windows, I'm using specifically Windows 11, but you will find the ease of access, I'm gonna change that name, on previous versions of Windows as well.
It may be slightly different how you navigate around and how it's laid out, but essentially most of the tools that I show you here, you will see in whatever version of Windows.
So let's just jump straight into it and open up ease of, I'm not saying that anymore, let's open up, I'm gonna call it accessibility center. Are you listening Microsoft? So to open it up, all you need to do is press the Windows key and the letter U on your keyboard. That's U for umbrella, Windows key and U at the same time. Let's do that. So now we have Windows settings has appeared on our screen. Now, before we get into it, let me just say I'm a screen reader user, I can't see the screen whatsoever, nothing at all.
I'm using Narrator to go through and navigate through these options, but whatever screen reader you are using, if you are already a screen reader user it may be slightly different, but you'll know how to navigate through already. So right now focus is in the search area of Windows settings, that's not where I want to be.
Let's get to the meat of accessibility, I'm just going to tab through here.
So tab, okay, so I'm now at the first group of options in ease of access and it is vision, which is handy for me. So the very first item under vision is text size and it says one of eight, so I know there's eight options in here and tech size is the first one. This affects the tech size, obviously, of system applications, the general Windows system, and third party applications as well. Sometimes it works well, sometimes it doesn't. But again, this is the whole point of ease of access is that you can play around here, test it out, see if it works for you. Does it make a difference? Does it make the system usable for you?
I'm not gonna change anything here, I'm simply gonna go back to the main screen.
To do that, I'm gonna press the alt key and the left arrow. Okay, so we're back to where we started. Let's go down again. Visual effects, now this is handy if you let's say using Zoom or a magnifier, and you find that scroll bars get in the way or you like the scroll bars or transparency makes it difficult to see things, where something can seem opaque, the backgrounds, or even animations such as the start menu coming up, if they're distracting to you, if they cause you issues, you can turn those off, it's very handy, but let's see what's next. Ah, mouse pointer and touch.
Again, as I said, I used a computer for years and years using a mouse and magnification and now you can make the mouse pointer incredibly large, almost taking up the entire screen of your monitor if you wish. Now at that level, it gets almost cumbersome to use and really should be thinking about switching to a screen reader. But hey, however it works for you.
The point is that you don't have to have a tiny little cursor, mouse pointer, on your screen. You can make it bigger, you can change the shape, you can change the color, and again in there is where you would change that. Let's move on, text cursor, again, interesting one. If you are using a lot of word processing apps or even just text editors such as Notepad or Microsoft Word, you can change how the blinking cursor that goes along as you're typing appears, visually. You can make it thicker, you can change the blink rate. As a screen reader user, this really doesn't help me at all, but for low vision users, this could be really handy.
Let's move on. Magnifier, now this is a big one. This is one that lots of people absolutely love and lots of people use.
In fact, let's go into here, I'm gonna hit spacebar, so you can turn it off or on in here. There's more settings here, but it's hiding them away from you, It's not showing you them to expand them, so you do see all the settings, you just hit spacebar, it's now expanded. So let's look through, so you can have it at the login screen if you want everything bigger at login or have it after you sign in, entirely your personal choice. Let's have a quick look, see what else there is. How much of the screen or how much magnification do you apply? Of course, this is the core functionality when it comes to magnification. You can have a huge amount of magnification where you only have a couple of letters that can fit on your monitor, whatever works for you.
The keyboard shortcut there is hit the Windows key and the plus key on your keyboard to zoom in and Windows key and minus to zoom back out.
That's also how you start the magnifier. So if you had it turned off, you don't have to necessarily go back to the Windows settings and to this area we're on right now to turn it on, just press Windows key and plus, a magnifier will start up straight away. So let's see what's next, default zoom level. When magnifier starts up for the first time, the zoom level will be 200%. I have it a lot more than that when I used it, so just play around, see what works for you. So let's go back, let's do alt left arrow. Okay, it's took me to the top, so I'm gonna have to navigate through to where we left off. Color filters, now this is an interesting one, it's something I've never really looked into and no one's really asked me about before, but if you are suffering with colorblindness, then you can change the colors on your system in this area. Obviously this is something I can't really take advantage of, but again, this could be really life changing.
This could mean that someone with color blindness who struggles using a computer right now can make their life easier. Let's move on. Contrast themes, this is what I use, funnily enough, because I do have a monitor in front of me, even though I can't see the screen. What I do have is some light perception. So it does help me that I know the computer is booting up, for example, because I can see my monitor just lighting up a little bit. Sounds strange, I know, bu basically it's just like an indicator light for me.
At the same time, I don't like a bright light at all. As we all know, if you open up something like a web browser, it's a blinding white screen. Now you can change that, sometimes called dark mode, but in this case, high contrast. So if you are a low vision and you struggle with certain combinations of color, for example, black on white screens and you'd rather have white on black background, this is where you do it. Let's have a quick look in here, I'm gonna hit space. So there we go, it's a simple combo box.
I'm gonna open that using alt and down arrow. So there's six themes there available, I think I'm using Night Sky right now, if you are able to see the screen, it just means basically everything is black and all the text is white on top of it, but it takes away that danger of being blasted by a massive white screen. Yes, you just arrow down or up through that list, hit enter and the theme will be applied, again, play around with it, see what works for you. Let's go back, alt Left arrow, and I think this is the final one. Narrator, of course the screen reader that comes built in to Windows. Again, magnifier and Narrator, I have individual episodes covering these and how to use them. It's just nice to see all these options grouped together in one space. That's the things that actually relate to me as a blind or visually impaired person, but this is not just about us, there are other disabilities that are covered here, other accessibility features, so let's carry on. I'm going to caps lock right arrow to see what's next. Okay, so there are three groups here. First one was vision, this one is hearing. So if you have hearing difficulties or hearing impaired, there are options here for you here. So let's take a look. Now this is really cool, if you can't hear anything at all or you struggle to hear, then you get a visual indication of any audio notifications, the screen will flash, very cool and alt left arrow and the next option under audio, captions. How cool is this? You can have subtitles for Windows.
Live captioning is something that's relatively new, but it's very, very handy.
So you don't have to rely on a video, for example, supplying its own subtitles. What Windows can do is using machine learning is to translate it on the fly. So it will make and generate its own captions, its own subtitles for any audio or video that's playing. It's very cool. You can also adjust how the subtitles look on the screen, the font size, the positioning, so much, the colors as well, I believe. So if you do rely on subtitling, then this is a really cool feature. Now, live captioning may only be available on the later version of Windows, but definitely check it out if you rely on that.
It could be very cool. Okay, let's see what's next. Okay, so now we're on interaction, the accessibility options on people that need more help in actually using the physical hardware. Let's take a look through. Speech, now, if you have trouble using a keyboard or a mouse, then you are able to control your system using your voice. Now there is a little bit of setup here, you need to train it just a little bit, but in general it works very well. Now, as a blind person, I do use occasionally something called dictation on the smartphone, makes it easier if I don't have access to a physical keyboard. And you can use the same sort of thing in Windows as well. If you are using Windows 11, I'm not sure about other versions, If you press the Windows key and H, you can dictate into any text field. If you're on a website or anywhere in a Word document, you can speak and it will translate what you say into text, maybe worth a try, check that out. Okay, let's see what else is in here. Keyboard, some people struggle to do these keyboard shortcuts such as Windows U for example, they're quite far apart. It can be tricky, if not impossible, to do with one hand, unless you've got massive hands. So there are ways, as this option shows you, where you can separate that out, so you don't have to press them at the same time, but you can hold the Windows key down and then the corresponding other key. It could be very handy. Again, the whole point of ease of access, if it works for you, you have that option. Let's go back alt left arrow, mouse. Okay, what options have we got here? Ah, yes, of course, mouse keys. Now what this allows you to do is use the number pad on your keyboard to move the mouse cursor, well, wherever, really. For people that find it really difficult to use a mouse, obviously, this could be really handy. Not anything that I've used before, as I can't see the mouse pointer anyway, but again, it's an option. Eye tracking, now this is such a cool feature, for people that are physically unable to use any other way to control their system you can use your eyes and where you are looking on the screen to control things such as the mouse pointer or even type on a keyboard. Now in Windows, I think you need anyway, specialized equipment called eye tracking hardware that enable this. But if you do attach that to your computer, you go to this setting here and you can enable and set up and fine tune eye tracking.
It's incredibly important for some people, it's the only way to use their computer and I love the fact that Windows has this built in. And that is ease of access center, very cool, right? Now, I know some of you may be thinking, well, yeah, but you didn't show us every single option and all the details, but honestly that's not the point here, because what I want to show you is there is somewhere where you can go in and look through all the options that are available and decide for yourself what may apply for you, what may make your experience better or may make it even possible for you to use a computer. Go in, play for yourself, try every option. Something that you may think, well, that doesn't apply for me, that's irrelevant to me. Take a look, try it out. You may find that actually it makes a huge difference, changing the text size, changing the contrast, the high contrast or whatever it may be. The point is the ease of access center, even though incredibly difficult for me to say, is a really useful area. Take a look, have a play around and see what works for you.
And just to let you all know, that this actually is my final episode of, "Shaun of the shed," Yes, Shaun has left the shed, but don't worry, we are changing things up here and we're going to put some shows together.
Once a month really isn't enough, you deserve more. That's why, "Double Tap," is coming to YouTube and we'll be here five days a week, even more! It's either feast or famine with us, right? Stephen, Scott and myself will be here on YouTube bringing you an hour long show with all the tech news, tips, tricks, and everything else you need, so that's coming next month. So I just wanna say thank you so much for sticking with me, for everyone who supported me, for the subscribers, everyone who's worked on these videos, I really appreciate it and thank you for everyone that's got in touch with me and I hope that I've helped someone out there.
Thank you so much guys, and I will see you next time.