1. A Tale of Two Operating Systems: A demonstration of the accessibility tools within Windows 7 and Snow Leopard (Mac OS X) that affect individuals with vision impairments Amy Salmon, Hadley School for the Blind Korey Singleton, GMU Assistive Technology Initiative AER Virginia Conference March 3 rd -5 th, 2010

2. Presentation Agenda Introductions – Amy & Korey Purpose of today’s presentation What we hope you will gain? What you will not get? Windows 7 Accessibility Tools Mac OS X Accessibility Tools Question & Answer

3. Windows 7 Accessibility Has made some significant accessibility improvements: Magnifier now includes a lens mode and full-screen mode. On-Screen Keyboard can be resized to make it easier to see and includes text prediction. Includes more ways to interact with PC by taking advantage of new strides in speech recognition and touch technology. Today, as it relates to Windows 7, we will focus specifically on Magnifier, Narrator, and other ways to make text on the screen larger or smaller.

4. ‘Ease of Access’ Center Provides a centralized location in Control Panel where you can adjust accessibility settings and programs Can be accessed in one of three ways: Going through Start Menu/Control Panel By pressing Windows Key + U When first logging onto Windows Windows 7 Accessibility cont... Where do you start?

5. Designed for individuals with low vision Improvements 3 different magnification modes Docked, Lens mode, Full-screen Improved magnification quality, up to 16 times Cursor tracking – by mouse, keyboard, or text-editing Windows 7 Accessibility cont... Windows Magnifier

6. Increasing font or icon sizes in Windows without changing optimal resolution Access this feature by going to Control Panel, Appearance and Personalization link, and then choosing Display. This gives you the ability to permanently increase screen size to 125% or 150%. Can also access the ‘Set custom text size (DPI)’ link in left navigation pane for a different setting. (Warning: This setting can affect how programs are displayed to user) Windows 7 Accessibility cont... Other ways to make text larger or smaller…

7. Zooming in or out of a document, presentation, or worksheet in MS Office 2007 Sliding bar in bottom right corner of status bar View tab, Zoom group – choose a preset Zoom setting or use custom (up to 400%) With mouse, hold down control key and use scroll wheel Saving the Zoom setting in Word, PowerPoint, or Excel In Word, open document or template, choose Zoom setting, add and delete a single space, and then save the document In PowerPoint or Excel, open document or template, choose Zoom setting, and then save the document Windows 7 Accessibility cont... Other ways to make text larger or smaller…

8. Provides user with basic navigation (menus, dialog boxes, typing) in Windows OS Improvements New “Narrator Key”, which is the Insert key Improved text reading functionality Windows 7 Accessibility cont... Windows Narrator

9. Zoom (screen magnification) Activated by: Keyboard shortcuts Universal Access button on the screen Trackpad gesture The scroll ball (or wheel) on a mouse. Note: Quartz rendering engine in Mac OS X, makes it so that text, graphics, and motion video can be magnified without affecting system performance. Mac OS X Accessibility

10. Other Notable features in Zoom: Full-screen magnifier Magnifies up to 40x. Three options for how the cursor tracking Moves continuously as you move the cursor Moves only when the cursor reaches the edge of the screen Moves so that the cursor remains in the middle of the screen — great for those with a narrow field of vision. Possible to set a minimum and maximum magnification value for instant zooming to a particular magnification and to prevent the magnification from going too high or low, leaving the system unreadable. Image smoothing High contrast/Grayscale settings Mac OS X Accessibility cont...

11. Adjusting Finder views Four ways to adjust views: icon, list, column, Cover Flow Cover Flow provides large previews of folder contents. ‘View Options’ within Finder view Can change icon sizes, background settings, text sizes, etc. This is independent of Universal Access settings Dock Magnification The ‘Dock’ offers a convenient way to access commonly used applications, files, and folders. As you drag items into the Dock, it automatically resizes to accommodate new items. Though the icons can be quite small if you add a great many items, Mac OS X lets you set the default size of Dock icons so they're easier to see and provides Dock Magnification, which automatically enlarges the icon you’re pointing to. Windows 7 Accessibility cont... Other magnification options…

12. Advanced, full-featured screen reader for Mac OS X Snow Leopard (Mac OS X v10.6) includes VoiceOver 3 In addition to screen-reading functionality built into over full-feature screen readers, VoiceOver added made improvements in VoiceOver 3 Gesture support** Braille display mirroring** Improved web support (table support, web shots, reading of full webpages, etc) Improved verbosity (3 levels) – completely customizable, added spoken hints Windows 7 Accessibility cont... VoiceOver

13. VoiceOver offers many help and support tools to get started accessing web pages, email, calendar, word processing, etc right out of the box. Windows 7 Accessibility cont... VoiceOver cont…

14. Other nice features: Built-in support for over 40 Refreshable Braille Displays (Bluetooth and USB) Braille Panel – onscreen tool provides assistance for sighted users working alongside braille users. Braille display mirroring - enables you to connect up to 32 USB braille displays (or one Bluetooth display and up to 31 USB braille displays) simultaneously to a single Mac. Great tool for teaching/learning. Portable preferences – take your preferences with you on a USB drive Gestures – Control your computer with VoiceOver using simple gestures like tap and flick on a multi-touch trackpad. Customizable keyboard shortcuts through “Commanders” interface TrackPad Commander Keyboard Commander NumPad Commander Scripting capability using AppleScript and Automator Integration (similar to running macros) Windows 7 Accessibility cont... VoiceOver cont…

15. Questions?? Questions

16. Accessibility in Microsoft Products - Windows 7 Windows 7 keyboard shortcuts Apple Accessibility – Vision webpage Mac OS X keyboard shortcuts VoiceOver In Depth References/Sources