Getting Started with NVDA

Getting started with NVDA

NVDA is a piece of software known as a screen reader. A screen reader does exactly what the name suggests: it reads out what is on the screen using synthesized speech. On Windows, there are three pieces of screen reader software that blind or low vision users will typically use.

  1. Job Access With Speech (JAWS) from Freedom Scientific.
  2. Non-Visual Desktop Access (NVDA) a free, open-source screen reader from NVAccess.
  3. Microsoft Narrator from Microsoft, built into the Windows operating system.

This guide is about NVDA. NVDA is one of the most popular pieces of screen reader software and follows the WCAG more strictly than JAWS, so when you come across a WCAG violation, you will more easily notice it. JAWS, on the other hand, tries to smooth over the experience on poorly conforming or non-compliant pages using various methods, so WCAG violations might not be communicated clearly or at all.

How to install NVDA

To install NVDA, you first need to download the NVDA installer. After you have downloaded the installer, double-click it. Go through the steps presented to you in the installer. At some point you will be asked to confirm administrator privileges. Once you have gone through all the steps in the installer, you will have NVDA installed.

The NVDA key

For some keyboard commands in NVDA, you have to press what’s called the NVDA Key. By default, it is set to the Insert key, but you can change that in the NVDA settings located in the system tray.

Starting and restarting NVDA

You can start or restart NVDA using two different methods:

  1. Open the Start menu, type “NVDA” and hit Enter
  2. Press the key combination Control+ Alt+ N

Changing the NVDA voice and other settings

You can change the voice that NVDA uses and a number of other settings in the NVDA settings menu, which can be accessed through the system tray.

For commands to navigate using NVDA, refer to the NVDA keyboard commands reference.