Getting Started

[Ricky] Hi, my name is Ricky Enger, and today we're gonna talk about the NVDA Screen Reader. We'll learn a little about what it is and what it does, and we'll take our first steps to getting it working the way we want. NVDA works with Microsoft Windows so if you're using something else, like a phone or a Mac computer, check out our other technology workshops to find out what you need to know for the device you are using.

Okay, so before we talk about how our NVDA Screen Reader works, we should know what it is and what it's for, right? Well, NVDA is a program we can install on our computer that will speak what's on our screen, and we have control over how it sounds and which info it gives us. That's important, because we don't wanna hear every single thing on our screen all the time.

Sometimes we wanna know just one thing, like what our clock says, or who just sent us an email. So yeah, NVDA is gonna give us the ability to use our computer to efficiently do everything we wanna do without needing to see what's on the screen. Oh, and did I mention it's free? So, yeah, there's a lot to like about NVDA. Now, before we can start using NVDA, we'll need to download it and get it installed. We won't be able to walk through that part of the process together, but here's what you need to know.

You can grab NVDA from nvaccess.org/download. We've got that link in our Resources section as well. So if you scroll down the Workshop page, you'll find it. NVDA will talk even when we're installing it. So that's super helpful. By the way, if you've already installed NVDA, you might still wanna stick around for the rest of this workshop for some useful tips. Okay, just one more thing we need to know before we run NVDA for the first time. We need to talk about modifier keys. So of course we have our letters and numbers on the keyboard, but we also have a few other keys worth mentioning too.

They're keys that we press along with other keys on the keyboard in order to do specific things. These are our modifier keys. You know the Shift key that we press to capitalize a letter. That's an example of a modifier key. When we type a letter without the Shift key, it's lowercase, but when we hold the Shift key down and press a letter the letter changes and becomes capitalized. So yeah, our modifier keys will work along with other keys to add some different functionality. We have a few modifier keys that we'll talk about during the series.

There's the ALT key, the Control key, and then there's the NVDA key, which we'll get to in just a bit. All right, so again, we can't walk through that initial process of getting the NVDA program and getting it installed, but once that part is done, here's what happens next. Right at the end of the installation, NVDA will tell us to press OK to start it.

[Voiceover] Success dialogue. Successfully installed NVDA. Please press OK to start the installed copy. OK button.

[Ricky] We can press our Space Bar to select the OK button here. If that's not where you are in the process though, like maybe you installed NVDA earlier and now you don't have this dialogue anymore. No worries, because NVDA has a lovely little shortcut that we can use to start it. Time to use a couple of those modifier keys we just talked about. We'll hold down the Control key and the Alt key. Now we'll just press and then quickly release our N key, N for NVDA. Now, once we've done that, we can just release our other keys as well.

[Voiceover] Welcome to NVDA dialogue. Welcome to NVDA. Most commands for controlling NVDA require you to hold down the NVDA key while pressing.

[Ricky] And there we go. Whether we selected the OK button from the installation screen, or we just used our Control + Alt + N shortcut, NVDA has now started. We've got a welcome message and there's quite a lot of info that NVDA wants to tell us about. Feel free to let NVDA continue chattering away as you do this on your own computer.

Right now though, I've told NVDA to stop reading just by tapping the Control key by itself. This is definitely a useful keystroke to keep in mind, because there will be times when we just need NVDA to shush for a little bit. Okay, so we're right here in our welcome dialogue, but what exactly is a dialogue anyway? It's a box that pops up when our computer needs to ask us some questions. There might be just one question with a yes or no answer, or an OK button, or maybe there are a few different questions to answer. That's what we'll find in this welcome dialogue here. We have a few questions to answer about how NVDA should be set up. So let's check out how to move through this dialogue and get these questions answered. We'll start by pressing and holding our Shift key, and then we'll tap our Tab key. This is just like capitalizing a letter, where once we've tapped our Tab key, we can just let go of the shift key as well.

[Voiceover] OK button.

[Voiceover] Ah, there's our OK button, which is actually the last option in our dialogue. Also, we just learned something important about moving through dialogue boxes. Shift plus our Tab key will take us backward. But hey, we probably wanna go forward through this list of questions instead. So, we'll press our Tab key without Shift this time.

[Voiceover] Options grouping, keyboard layout, combo box desktop collapsed, ALT + K.

[Ricky] All right, this option seems like it's asking us if we're using a laptop or a desktop. Really though, it's asking us if we're using a full-sized keyboard with a keypad of numbers on the right side, or a smaller keyboard without these keys. We'll be using the desktop layout for the series, but if you'd like to change to the laptop layout, just press the down arrow key to switch. There's more info about desktop and laptop layouts in the resources section if you scroll down the workshop page. If you're not sure which one to choose, it's fine to leave this alone for now and you can change it later if you need to. Okay, let's see what's next. We'll press Tab.

[Voiceover] Use Caps Lock as an NVDA modifier, key check box not checked, ALT + U.

[Ricky] Yay, more modifiers. Just like the Control and Alt keys, we can use our NVDA modifier key, along with other keys on the keyboard, to do specific things. We'll be using the NVDA key a lot, so it's important to know which key it is. By default, NVDA uses the Insert key as its modifier. Every keyboard can be a little different, which means that the Insert key may not be in the same place for everyone. For that reason alone, it's nice to have a modifier key, like our Caps Lock key, that's easy to find. It's right above the Shift key on the left side of the keyboard. So let's go ahead and check this box, which will let us use the Caps Lock key in addition to the Insert key that's already set up. So we'll press our Space Bar to check the box.

[Voiceover] Space checked.

[Ricky] Yep, that did it. We just have a couple more questions to get to here. So let's press Tab and see what's next.

[Voiceover] Start NVDA after I sign in, checkbox not checked, ALT+ A.

[Ricky] Okay, this is asking us if we'd like NVDA to start automatically when we log into our computer. This way, we don't have to press Control + Alt + N to start it. So just like our previous checkbox, we can press Spacebar to check or uncheck the box. Great, let's tap again and see if there's anything else here.

[Voiceover] Show this dialogue when NVDA starts, checkbox checked, ALT + S.

[Ricky] Yep. So if we wanna have this dialogue box pop up each time NVDA starts, we can keep this box checked. However, if we've got everything set up the way we want, we can just use our Spacebar to uncheck the box. So we'll just press Space

[Voiceover] Space not checked

[Ricky] And there we go. Now let's Tab one more time.

[Voiceover] OK button.

[Ricky] Awesome, we found our OK button, which will let apply all the changes we've made and close the dialogue. And just like the other checkbox, we can press Space to select OK. So let's do it. We'll press Space

[Voiceover] Desktop list OBS Studio six of nine.

[Ricky] And we did it. Our dialogue box is closed and now we're back to wherever we were on the computer before opening NVDA. Wow. We covered a lot today. We just answered a few questions about how we want NVDA to work, and we've also learned a bit about getting through dialogue boxes. As a quick recap, we found out that Shift + Tab will take us backward through a dialogue box, Tab will take us forward.

Our Spacebar will come in handy for selecting buttons and check boxes, and we can use our Control key to make NVDA stop speaking. We also talked a little about modifier keys, and we'll learn even more about how they work later in the series. Now that NVDA is installed and we've run it for the first time, we'll actually start learning how to use it in our next few workshops. It's gonna be fun. I'm Ricky Enger and I'm glad you could spend a little time with me today learning about getting started with NVDA. See you next time.