Most families with school-aged children are probably familiar now with Google Classroom. Chances are, if you are a school-aged or college attending student, you probably could teach a thing or two on how to use a Chromebook to your parents. And some out there, working in I.T. Professional jobs, may even want to sit in on some of those lessons as more and more vocations are considering the use of a Chromebook at the work site.
J.J. sat down with Laura Allen, Program Manager for Accessibility on Chrome and Chrome OS, to discuss the multiple changes to the ChromeVox and Chrome OS experience that have been implemented over the last year. Tune in to discover the thoughts behind the redesigned ChromeVox screen reader, new USB Braille Display support and how ChromeVox interacts with touch screen based Chromebooks.
Laura also provides an overview of features for Low Vision users in the new levels of magnification supported, a docked magnifier window and enhancements to the visibility of the cursor and mouse pointer within Chrome OS. There is even a sneak peak at what is coming to Select to Speak in upcoming milestone releases.
Be sure to note the suggestions for learning ChromeVox and ChromeOS so you can distinctly know your Earcon from your Emoticon!
Our 2018 summer convention coverage is sponsored by Google.
This week we re teaming up with our friends on the Google Accessibility team to talk about accessibility features within products like Android, Chrome OS, G Suite, Google Home, Assistant and more! Be sure to listen to our podcast series where we get the inside scoop, including the upcoming launch of Chat support and a 24 hour response time for the Disability Support team on July 9th.
The Google Accessibility team is also inviting everyone to participate in user research studies, where you can help shape the future of accessible products and features -- and get rewarded for it. Select here to sign up to participate and learn more at google.com/accessibility.
Transcript
We strive to provide an accurate transcription, though errors may occur.
Hide transcriptTranscribed by Grecia Ramirez
This convention special podcast is sponsored by Google.
Our friends at Google are working hard to create great technology products for everyone. They’re inviting you to participate in Google user research studies, where you can help shape the future of accessible products and features and get rewarded for it. Check out our tweet for the sign-up link, at blind bargains, or head to google.com slash user research.
Now, here’s J.J. Meddaugh.
J.J. MEDDAUGH: NFB 2018 in Orlando. I am here with Laura Allen. She is Accessibility Program Manager for Chrome and Chrome OS. Lots of new things and cool stuff going on with Chrome, and she’s here to tell us all about it. You’re welcome to Blind Bargains.
LAURA ALLEN: Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
JM: And of course, Google is sponsoring a lot of our convention coverage. We do appreciate that. So definitely check out the series for the other interviews from many Google employees as well, here at NFB and ACB. So thank you so much.
So why don’t we just start from the beginning? I know a lot of people are familiar with Chromebook, but I think for some people, it’s one of those things that, you know, you know there’s Chromebooks out there, but maybe it’s not someone’s primary computer, so go ahead and give us an intro.
LA: Yeah. Sure. So Chromebooks are laptop computers that are built – the Chrome operating system is built at Google on our Chrome OS team. So Chromebooks are a little bit different than your traditional PC laptops, for example. So they’re really designed to be very, you know, fast and secure and simple and lightweight. They’re designed to run apps and get you on the internet really quickly and efficiently. They’re not designed to run, like, traditional software that you would install. They’re really meant to be, kind of like, web-based apps. And what we do is we work with a lot of different manufacturers, like, from HP to Dell to Acer to Samsung – many others – to develop the different hardware for Chromebooks. So they can come in different sizes, different shapes, different – you know. Some have touchscreens, some don’t; some will rotate into a tablet mode, some are traditional clamshell laptops. So it really just depends on what you’re looking for in terms of the amount of processing power and whatnot, and the amount of RAM, whether or not you want a touchscreen, et cetera. And then the actual experience, once you turn on the Chromebook, like, the software experience, is exactly the same across no matter what model or what price point you purchase your Chromebook at. So they go as low as about $150, and then they go all the way up to about over a thousand dollars, just depending on, again, what you’re looking for in the hardware. But that software experience and all of your accessibility settings and all your features there will be the same across the different models that you can choose from.
So Chromebooks are also really interesting for the purpose of sharing. So, for example, let’s just say we have a family –
JM: Right.
LA: -- sharing a device. If you have your account – like, let’s say I have my account on my Chromebook and I’m signed in. I set the different accessibility features that I need for my vision. Those will be saved and synced to my account. So if I go to another Chromebook, somebody else’s who – you know, I’ve never touched before – if I sign in on that with my account, then my settings will be right there to support me. I don’t have to reconfigure anything.
JM: And even if you walk up to a new Chromebook and it doesn’t have accessibility, you can hit a hotkey and turn on the speech to get started.
LA: Yup. Exactly. Any time at any screen, you can press control+Alt+Z, as in zebra, to turn on ChromeVox, which is our screen reader. And that’s V-o-x, V as in voice. So yeah. Every Chromebook comes built in with the ChromeVox screen reader and a number of other accessibility features. Uh-huh.
JM: Now, ChromeVox has changed, for those people that maybe haven’t played with a Chromebook in a while. There’s a lot of new features, and it’s kind of been completely redesigned.
LA: It has been, yes. So we launched the original version of ChromeVox back in 2011, and we got a long way with it. But we collected a lot of feedback from our users along the way, and we realized that we really wanted to kind of reenvision and redesign it from the ground up, so we launched a completely new version, fully rebuilt back in February of 2017, and we’ve been continuing to add additional features and functionalities to this new version. So back during the transition, this was called ChromeVox Next, just during the transition. Now, we’re just back to calling it ChromeVox because it’s now on all Chromebooks by default as the new version. And this new version comes with a lot of cool new things. So overall, it’s just, like, a faster, more consistent experience, just the way that it’s actually interacting with the webpage or with an app.
We also have greatly simplified the keyboard shortcuts. So we got a lot of feedback from our original version that we had to hold down too many shortcuts, too many modifier keys to be able to navigate efficiently, so we stripped away our concept of layered keyboard commands –
JM: Right.
LA: -- and now, we just have, you know, one modifier key, which is our Search key, which on other laptops, is the Caps lock key. It’s the Search key, and we just have, like, no more layered commands. So for example, to go by heading, it’s simply Search plus H. To go by buttons, Search plus B. Very straightforward in that regard.
We also have a new speech panel and a menu panel. So for example, at any time, with ChromeVox, you can press Search plus period, and then a new – a set of menus will pop up, where you have a list of all your different jump commands that you can navigate through, you have a list of your open tabs, your ChromeVox options, which will kind of get you to the tutorial, or to the keyboard learning mode. You can also get to a whole number of different lists, like headings lists or links lists, forms lists. So if you’re on a complex webpage, it’s just a little bit easier to navigate.
JM: So kind of like a one-stop shop – now, I know many of these things probably have their own keyboard shortcuts, but if you don’t want to memorize –
LA: Yes.
JM: -- them all –
LA: Exactly. So for anybody who’s new to ChromeVox, or anyone who’s new to screen reading as a whole, we wanted to make, kind of a central portal that you can just remember that one shortcut, Search plus period, to get there and then kind of learn the different ones that you do want to memorize. Yeah.
We have a few other things that are newer. So we added new earcons. We redesigned the sounds that are kind of playing behind when you get to a button or to a link, just to make them a little bit more efficient, a little bit more present. And –
JM: Are they similar to Android, or are they their own thing – entirely different?
LA: They are their own. They are their own. And we have set them so that there’s kind of a stereo positioning of them. So if you, for example, navigate to a button that’s on the left side of the page, you’re actually going to hear the button earcon in your left ear. Same as if you get to a link on the right side, you’ll hear the link earcon in your right ear, just to get a little bit more of that contextual clue about what is the visual layout. So that’s also new.
JM: Really interesting. Now, if you’re using programs like GoogleDocs, GoogleDrive, and so you’re used to using them on other -- Windows or Mac –
LA: Uh-huh.
JM: -- are the keyboard shortcuts pretty similar if you wanted to transition over, or is it entirely different?
LA: Within GoogleDocs or the general – like, screen reader, like –
JM: I guess Google – the Google suite specifically.
LA: Yes. They are going to be very similar, particularly with the Windows side. Yes.
JM: Okay. And of course there’s braille support as well?
LA: Yes.
JM: And USB now?
LA: Yes. Yes. So all you have to do at this point is plug in a USB braille display, and no other set up required. It’ll just simply start working for you. Bluetooth braille support is coming very soon, but right now, you just plug in the USB braille display, and then you’re able to use it for input and output. There are different options. You can use UEB. We also have worked over the last months to add a number of different chorded commands. So we wanted to add more that you can do with the Perkins-style keyboard on the braille display. For example, to get around the different parts of the Chromebook. Like, the status area where you would want to go to your settings or to get to the shelf of different apps on the bottom of the screen and do more efficient navigation through your braille display keyboard so you don’t have to shift your hand back and forth so many times between the QWERTY keyboard and the braille display.
JM: So the braille support is USB only at this point, or –
LA: Yes. Yes. USB only at this point, but Bluetooth coming very soon.
JM: Okay. Now, of course, the Chrome support – I mean, you’ve talked about is keyboard-focused. Is there support for the touchscreen as well, or –
LA: Yes. There is touch support as well. So right now, there are a lot of different Chromebooks out in the market that do have touchscreens, and right now, if you were to use ChromeVox out with a current machine that’s out in the market, you’d be able to use, kind of, the basic touch functionality of swiping linearly, very similar to what you would do on a mobile phone --
JM: Right.
LA: --double-tap to actually activate. You can also use touch exploration to explore whatever’s underneath your finger, and you can drag your finger up and down the right edge of the screen to change the volume. We are in the process of adding a bunch of new gestures as well, since we’re actually – we have more and more Chromebooks coming out that are convertible into tablet mode. And then we even have some tablets coming out later this year, like, without keyboards. So we wanted to work on making the experience really good just with touch, so not with the keyboard. So we are adding more gestures coming out in the next two milestones. We work on six-week release cycles, so in the next set of the – the two next six-week release cycles, we’re going to be adding more and more and more touch gestures, and we’ll, at some point soon, be adding a touch tutorial as well, just to kind of give you a little bit more --
JM: Sure.
LA: -- sense. Uh-huh.
JM: That’s some very interesting insight of where Google is going as far as tablets running Chrome. Are they running –
LA: Yes.
JM: -- as far as the tablets and your Chromebooks as well, Android app support, is that coming, and how is that accessibility?
LA: Yes. Yes. So we do have – some of our Chromebooks are able to access the Play Store, which is the Android Play Store, in addition to the Chrome Web Store so that you can use both Chrome and Android apps, which really gives you access to many, many, many different types of apps. So right now, on a Chromebook, what happens is if you have ChromeVox, the screen reader, on, if you open up an Android app or you access the Android Play Store, then you’re automatically going to be put into the TalkBack screen reader. And you can still continue to use it with the keyboard, or you can use the touchscreen to navigate around. To be totally honest though, it comes with some seams, if you will. Since you are technically using a different screen reader, not all of the keyboard shortcuts are exactly the same. So the basic navigation and everything, that all works smoothly and consistently through, but we want to get to the point where, you know, we’re in the process now of doing the technical work to make it possible to have ChromeVox itself interact with the Android apps. So in the coming months, that’s kind of what the plan is. That’s the longer term plan. We’ll transition over to making it work with ChromeVox, which will then mean that you can also use a braille display to interact with the Android apps.
JM: Oh, wow. Very interesting. As far as the apps themselves, when you transition to TalkBack, if you enable ChromeVox accessibility, does that turn on TalkBack as well, or –
LA: Yes.
JM: Okay.
LA: Exactly. Uh-huh.
JM: So you don’t have to worry about switching to Android –
LA: No.
JM: -- and losing your speech.
LA: Uh-huh.
JM: Okay. Now besides ChromeVox, other accessibility features, you were telling me about some new features for magnification.
LA: Yeah. Yeah. So we have a few different things. So we’ve had our full-screen magnifier for a long time, which we recently did increase the maximum zoom level for magnification all the way to up to 20X now. But we did recently launch a different type of magnifier to go – in case someone doesn’t want to use the full-screen magnifier, we now offer a ducked magnifier. And the way this one works is basically, it zooms in the top one third of the screen. So the top one third is the zoomed portion. The bottom two thirds, everything else is kind of resized to fit within. So you basically will take your mouse cursor and navigate around the bottom two thirds of the screen, and it’ll control whatever’s actually being displayed in the zoomed-in portion. So this, we basically had worked with a number of users to kind of figure out what is the right size. We’ve heard from some of our users that, you know, it helps to reduce the overall amount of panning needed to get around the screen, and it helps some of our users feel like they have a better sense of where they are on the bottom screen compared to needing to pan quite a bit on the full-screen magnifier. So we’re excited that that launched as of Chrome version 66. And we have a few other features as well.
So we have a feature called Highlights, which can help with enhanced visibility. So Highlights can be turned on for going around the mouse cursor, the text caret, or the keyboard-focused item. And this just basically adds a circle around those items –
JM: Okay.
LA: -- so, like, for example, if I had it on the mouse cursor, when I moved the cursor around, there would be a colored ring around it. And then I’d be able to kind of see that while the mouse is in motion. And then it would fade away once the mouse stopped moving. So just there to give you a little bit of extra visual support.
JM: Okay. That’s, of course, lots of stuff for magnification. You were also telling me one of the Android’s features is available on the Chromebooks as well, the Select to Speech feature --
LA: Yes.
JM: --for low-vision users.
LA: Yes. So we did launch our own version of Select to Speak, which is quite similar to how Android launched theirs as well. So when Select to Speak is on, it’s kind of like it’s on-demand text to speech. So you can use the Search key, which again, is the same modifier key as ChromeVox. You hold down the Search key, and then you can either click a given line of text or drag a box around a certain area of the screen, whether it’s text or images or icons or tabs, whatever it may be. And then, it will speak allowed whatever’s in that area. There’s also word-by-word highlighting available. So that could be really helpful, of course, for anyone like me who’s low-vision, but then also, honestly, anyone perhaps who’s dyslexic or anyone who just benefits from listening to the speech spoken aloud while visually reading it. So that has been released this year, or actually, at the end of last year too. And we’ve been adding more and more.
So for example, we added the word-by-word highlighting, we also added the ability to, if you, for example, don’t want to drag a box around a whole area, you can just highlight certain text. Like, if you were to just select text as you typically would select text, and then press a key stoke -- Search plus S – and have only that text spoken allowed as well. So we added that way to use the feature, and coming soon, in the next milestone that reaches the stable channel, we have the ability to use Select to Speak with touch or mouse or stylus as well. So there’ll be a little button on the screen that you can interact with if you choose to.
JM: Very cool. There’s a lot going on here, and –
LA: Yeah.
JM: -- there’s a lot with people trying to learn, say, the Chromebooks for education, especially lots of trainers that might want to get into that. How do you recommend someone get started trying to transition over, maybe using a Chromebook? What’s the best way to start diving in and learning everything?
LA: Yeah. That’s a great question. So I would recommend – we actually have a video series. It’s called the Chrome and Chrome OS accessibility video series on our YouTube channel. If you just do a Google search for just Chrome and Chrome OS accessibility YouTube, you should be able to find a playlist, and at this point, I believe we have 18 videos in there all about, you know, navigating the Chromebook with the keyboard, making your Chromebook easier to see, using ChromeVox. And we’ll be adding more later this year as well to cover some of the newer features like the ducked magnifier. So I would recommend taking a look at those videos and then also, looking at the Chromebook Help Center. If you go to the Chromebook Help Center on that main page when you first arrive, there’s an accessibility section, and that will take you to a number of different articles and kind of help you to get started. Yeah.
JM: Great. I know people will have feedback, and you guys do a lot with user feedback to help –
LA: Yeah.
JM: -- improve features. And what’s the best way to communicate and –
LA: Yeah. So I would say our team has a couple of different community groups. We have GoogleGroups, so if you’re interested in joining our Google groups, we have a few that I’d recommend. So first, we have the chromebook-accessibility@googlegroups.com email address. And then, we have a ChromeVox specific one. So it’s chromevox-discuss@googlegroups.com. These are both great communities to join if you want to kind of be in touch with people on our team as well as just people in the community who are interested in kind of talking about different topics, posing questions to the broader group. So to join those, you can either do a Google search for those email addresses or you can go to groups.google.com and then search for those. And then, you’ll have to request to join, and then, you’ll be in the group.
JM: And of course, you’ve been hearing a lot about disability-support@google.com. People can email as well for questions.
LA: Yes. Any questions about anything Google accessibility. Yup.
JM: Absolutely. Hey, thank you so much for sharing some of the latest with us. We really appreciate it.
LA: Thanks for having me.
JM: And be sure to come back to Blind Bargains for the rest of our coverage and all of our convention coverage from NFB and ACB 2018.
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Joe Steinkamp is no stranger to the world of technology, having been a user of video magnification and blindness related electronic devices since 1979. Joe has worked in radio, retail management and Vocational Rehabilitation for blind and low vision individuals in Texas. He has been writing about the A.T. Industry for 15 years and podcasting about it for almost a decade.
