[Trainer-Talk] Teaching Gmail

[Greg Aikens]

Hi all,
For those of you teaching clients to use Gmail, I would be curious to hear what approach you are using. Are you still teaching clients to use Basic html, are you teaching them to use Standard view with the standard html navigation commands from the screen reader, or are you using Standard view with keyboard shortcuts enabled?

I teach Gmail fairly early in the course after basic web navigation has been covered. I tried Standard view with keyboard shortcuts enabled but found that most of my clients struggled with this approach, especially as new screen reader users, turning the virtual PC cursor on and off added a layer of complexity most were not ready for yet.

I switched to basic html because of how predictable navigation is and how it reinforces html navigation concepts. However, that interface has gotten so old that so many of the new and convenient features are not available. Recently, I checked out the new Gmail Standard view and found that it is far more predictable to navigate with standard html navigation keystrokes than I ever remembered.

I have been pretty happy with this approach for the last few months and am now in search of resources to support my clients, such as handouts, blog posts, etc. where they can do further reading outside of class. . Before I start creating resources, I wanted to see if anyone could recommend some that explain/describe navigating standard view using region/landmarks, headings, form fields, etc.

Thanks for any thoughts/resources you can share. I would love to hear how you guys are teaching these concepts.

Best,
Greg


Greg Aikens
Senior Assistive Technology Instructor
Center for the Visually Impaired<http://www.cviga.org/>
739 West Peachtree Street NW
Atlanta, GA 30308
404-602-4285

[Title: CVI Logo - Description: CVI Logo]<http://www.cviga.org/>

CVI<http://www.cviga.org/> empowers those with vision loss to live with independence and dignity.

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image001.png
Type: image/png
Size: 18711 bytes
Desc: image001.png
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/trainer-talk_nfbnet.org/attachments/20190423/d4fc0567/attachment.png>