From the course: Working with Computers and Devices

Discover and use accessibility features

From the course: Working with Computers and Devices

Discover and use accessibility features

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- [Instructor] Modern computer operating systems are designed with the needs of everyone in mind. For example, there's a wide range of tools and accessibility features built into Windows 10 that make it easier to use your computer if you have certain disabilities or challenges. These features often need to be enabled before you can take advantage of them. Many of the Windows 10 accessibility features can be found by going to the start menu, to Settings, and here click Ease of Access. In the left column, you'll find accessibility categories to access settings for vision, hearing, and interaction. For example, under Vision, we can select Display, and here you can change the size of the text in applications you're viewing. The slider here under Make text bigger lets you customize the default size of text. When it looks good to you, you can click Apply, and you can see that instantly makes all the text, including the text in the Setting window, larger. I'm going to set that back. If you need to make not just text larger, but the windows and other elements as well, you can select a percentage value here under Make everything bigger. You can see mine's currently set to 200%. If I restore the window here so we can see some of the elements like the Recycle Bin here, I can make it larger or even smaller. I'm going to set that back to the 200% setting where it was. And below that under Make everything brighter, you can change the brightness of your display. Moving to Cursor & pointer size, here you can make adjustments like increasing the size of the mouse cursor to make it easier to see. Notice as I click these, the size changes. And you can also change its color. Above that, you can change the thickness of text cursors so they're easier to see when you're typing. Next, we have the magnifier. Enabling the magnifier zooms you into the screen at the selected size, currently set to 200% here. And that can make things easier to see or read. And you can just move your mouse around the screen to see other parts of the display. Turn that off again for now. So those are some of the useful vision settings. Under Hearing, you can select Audio, and here you can set alerts where you'll be alerted visually so you don't miss audible alerts. So for example, I could choose Flash the active window so when an application I'm using beeps, the window I'm currently using will also flash. Under the Interaction category, there are several settings based on your interaction with input devices, like the keyboard, mouse, speech, and eye control. Under Keyboard, for example, there's an option to use an onscreen keyboard which we can enable. This is useful on devices without a physical keyboard, but also for anyone who might have difficulties using a physical keyboard and can better control the mouse to input text with this virtual keyboard. So this has been just a few examples of the many features found in Windows and other operating systems that improve accessibility and allow you to use your computer more effectively.

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