This tutorial has been written by our Technical Support Officer Paul Traynor.
In this second tutorial we will look at some ways we as screen reader users may go about moving through the BOI accounts page in a manner that makes it both easy and efficient.
The BOI accounts page isn’t too badly laid out in that it contains elements such as the following;
*. Heading styles
Heading styles are areas of a webpage where there are various headings a bit like newspaper headlines which stand out more visually on the page than the normal text. These headings are very useful if using a “Screen reader” because nowadays all screen readers have the ability to jump to heading styles on a page with the press of a key. For example if I want to move through a webpage to a “particular portion” of that page and if the webpage has been correctly marked up using heading styles then usually pressing the “Letter H” should have the effect of moving my focus through the page to various sections I wish to know more about. This kind of behaviour is not just applicable to my Bank account webpage but to all sorts of websites these days.
Exercise: Moving through the accounts page using heading styles.
- When in your accounts page press keys, “Control + home” to move to the top of the Bank’s webpage.
- Now press the “Letter H” from time to time and see how it moves focus down through the page to particular portions of that page.
- You can also use keys, “Shift + Letter H” to navigate in reverse back upward through the page should you wish too.
Moving quickly through links.
Another skill you will need is that of moving quickly to links contained on the webpage where you need to move into another page in order to perform a certain task.
For this example we are going to do an exercise where we will top up our mobile phone.
Note: This applies only to the “Bank of Ireland” website.
- Move to the top of the page using keys, “Control + home”.
2.Press keys, “Insert + F7” which when using JAWS and NVDA, pulls up a list of links.
- From this list of links press the “Letter M” till you hear your Screen reader announce, “Money transfer” and press the “Enter key” once to move into this page.
- Once again use keys, “Insert + F7” to pull up a list of links on this next page. Now press key, “Letter M” till you hear your screen reader announce, “Mobile top-up”.
- Press the “Enter key” once on this link and wait for the next page to open up.
Notes: Now when this next page opens up you will be within a page where you can fill out a form which will transfer money to your mobile phone provider so you can top up your credit on that phone.
- Press keys, “Control + home” to move to the top of the page and then use that handy skill you learned using those “Heading styles earlier where you press the letter “H” till you are positioned on a heading that indicates to you that you are now about to begin filling out the required details to make that “Top-up transaction”.
Notes: I pressed the letter “H” three times to move to the beginning of the form which has the following items to be completed;
Important: Use the “Tab key” on your keyboard to move through the below elements.
*. Select account combo box (Usually your current account)
*. Select prefix for your mobile phone “combo box”, (087 or some other prefix).
Notes: Use the “Arrow keys” to move through the “combo boxes”.
*. Enter mobile phone details, “Edit box”.
*. Confirm mobile phone prefix, “Combo box”.
*. Confirm mobile phone number, “Edit box”.
*. Choose mobile phone provider, “Radio buttons”.
Notes: Use arrow keys to move through these radio buttons till you come to your provider.
*. Enter details amount required, “Combo box”, This could be something like €20 and so on.
*. Continue button.
Notes: Press the “Spacebar” once on this to move to the next page.
Part 2: Completing the money transfer for your mobile top-up.
After pressing the “Spacebar” on the Continue button and when you move into the next page, once again you will be asked for some digits from your 6 digit security PIN. These digits have to be entered correctly in order for the transfer to go through successfully.
Once you have inserted those all-important digits press “Enter or spacebar” on the continue button to complete the transaction and now if all went well you should have your phone topped up.