MENUS AND DIALOGUE
BOXES
TERMS AND
DEFINITIONS:
FIRST LETTER
NAVIGATION: navigating to an item by its first letter
MENU: a list of
options or commands that you can choose from
UNAVAILABLE: a
particular command you cannot perform because it is grayed out
DIALOGUE BOX: a
special window that requests some type of information from you
COMBO BOX: a list of
options navigated by using up and down arrows
CHECK BOX: a list of
options that can be chosen by putting a mark in the box (more than one of the
options can be chosen)
RADIO BUTTON: a list
of options that can be chosen by putting a mark in the circle (only one of the
options can be chosen)
BUTTON: an option
that is activated by the space bar or enter key, it looks like a small
rectangle
MULTIPAGE DIALOGUE
BOX: a dialogue box that is divided into several pages, each page has its own
options to choose from
SPIN BOX: a list of
options navigated by using up and down arrows
VALUE: combination of
letter or numbers or both
KEYS YOU WILL NEED TO
KNOW:
Windows keys: ctrl
tab, space bar
Screen reader keys:
NO NEW KEYS
EXPLANATION: When you
have a list of options to choose from, using the arrow keys work, but sometimes
you can press the first letter of that option to go directly to it, if you know
what the first letter is. When an option is unavailable to you, the screen
reader will say “unavailable” and it looks grayed out. Pressing enter on
something that is unavailable will do nothing. Pressing enter on an item that
ends with dot dot dot …
will open a dialogue box. Dialogue boxes can have multiple options presented in
a variety of ways. Check boxes are used when you are allowed to choose more
than one item. You check or uncheck a check box with the space bar. Radio
buttons are used when you are allowed to choose only one item. Buttons are not
for choosing an item. Pressing enter on a button causes an action to happen. Some
dialogue boxes have multiple pages which can be viewed using ctrl tab and then
tabbing and/or using arrow keys through those options as usual. The screen
reader will say “page” when there is more than one page to the dialogue box.
ACTIVITIES:
1)
In
Wordpad open the file menu and arrow to print and
listen for the underlined letter and the command
2)
Open
file menu and press p, press esc on the dialogue box that opens
3)
Press
control p and close the dialogue box that opens
4)
Press
alt v in Wordpad and arrow up to options…
5)
Tab
through that dialogue box and listen for radio buttons, check boxes and pages
and listen to what the screen reader says about them
6)
On
the Rich Text page, notice with radio buttons only one option can be chosen,
more than one check box can be checked
7)
Open
the print dialogue box with control p and tab through those options listening
to what the screen reader says about each one (the new option in there is a
spin box)
8)
Press
enter on the preferences button and listen for the edit combo and what the
screen reader says about it
TAKE THE TEST MENUS AND DIALOGUE BOXES