NVDA screen reader keyboard overlays

These keyboard command overlays for your laptop and desktop help familiarise testers with NVDA screen reader functionality.

User experience consultancy Stamford Interactive has created visual "maps" of the NVDA screen reader navigation commands, which testers can use as an overlay on their laptop or desktop PC to help learn the keyboard shortcuts and thus make accessibility testing easier.

People who are blind or vision impaired and who use a screen reader likely use keyboard shortcuts rather than a mouse to navigate a webpage. Since native screen reader users often have to memorise those keyboard shortcuts, these overlays act as a kind of "cheat sheet" to help accessibility testers evaluate webpages more effectively.

The Stamford Interactive website states:

This is for testers who use NVDA, a free screen reader, to test online content for any access issues. To make it easier for sighted testers to learn how to use the tool and test effectively with it, we visually mapped the navigation commands to a keyboard layout. We find that it helps us remember the functions and learn different ways we can navigate around the page. The more we understand what the tool can do, the more effectively we can test!

These overlays have been produced using the NVDA User Guide (version 2012.2) which outlines the function of each keyboard command in detail.

Note: As NVDA further develops the functionality of their screen reader, new keyboard commands may be added that are currently note included in these documents.

Laptop layout

Download a larger version of the NVDA keyboard commands laptop layout [141kb, GIF].

Desktop layout

Download a larger version of the NVDA keyboard commands desktop layout [152kb, GIF].

You can also download printable versions of the NVDA keyboard commands from Stamford Interactive. Access iQ™ has republished these resources with their permission.