Ease of Access Settings in Windows 10

Introduction

Windows lovers are eagerly waiting for the 29th July 2015, because that day will be a big day in the history of Microsoft. On the 29th of July, 2015 Windows 10 will be launched. There are many new features available in Windows 10. These features make Windows 10 very powerful compared to previous versions of Windows. In this article, we learn about the Ease of Access and its features in Windows 10. Ease of Access is also a part of the Windows settings. Basically it works on the accessibility of programs in Windows. So here we explain it step-by-step.

Step 1

Go the Start menu in Windows 10. Here you find the settings as in the following picture.

Figure 1. Start menu in Windows 10.

Step 2

When you explore the settings then there are many options available. So click Ease of Access from there.

Figure 2. Ease of Access.

Step 3

When you click on the Ease of Access setting then a window will open with all the available features in the Ease of Access panel.

Figure 3. Ease of Access Features.

Here we have Narrator, Magnifier, High Contrast, Closed Captioning, Keyboard, Mouse and the last one is for other optional features. These are the features available in the Ease of Access. So let's explain them one by one.

Narrator

The Narrator is used to allow text and controls present on the screen to be heard. There are many settings in the Narrator section. The Narrator works just like a reader, it reads all the text and controls available on your screen. So the first thing to do is to turn on the Narrator. To turn on the Narrator simply swipe the narrator to on. When you do this you will see a window like this.

Figure 4. Turn on the Narrator.

After turning on the Narrator we will see there are options related to the Narrator that will be enabled. Before they were disabled when the Narrator was turned off. Here many options are available in the Narrator. The first one is to start the Narrator automatically. Using it we can start the Narrator automatically whenever our system starts. The second option provides a choice of voice. You can choose the voice. Here two voice options are available, one is Microsoft David and the other one is Microsoft Zira. Here you can also manage the speed and pitch of the voice. The next part of the Narrator is the sound you hear. In this section, there are five options that you can enable or disable depending on your choice. In this section, you can enable the narrator for characters and words you type and many more. The last part of the Narrator is known as the Cursor and Keys. In this part, we highlight the cursor when typing any text and the key Narrator is used when you use a touch screen.

Magnifier

As the name implies, the Magnifier magnifies the screen to display the screen in a zoomed mode, that is in a small size. So the main purpose of the magnifier is to make the text that is not visible easily make it easy and more visible. Using the magnifier is easy. Just go to the magnifier link. When you click there you will see a window. There is an option to turn on the magnifier. Just swipe the bar left to right now, your magnifier is on. Here is also the option to turn on the magnifier automatically every time. One more option is to invert the color. When you turn that on then the appearance in terms of color will be changed.

Figure 5. Magnifier

When your Magnifier is on you will see a popup as in the following picture. Here you will see the two icons, one is a plus sign icon and the second is a minus sign icon. The plus sign icon magnifies the text or picture and the minus sign returns to a previous mode.

Figure 6. Magnifier popup.

High Contrast

High Contrast is a feature for changing and managing the text color. Sometimes the color of the text is White or Black and not easy to read. So High Contrast provides the facility to change the text color. High Contrast provides a theme for choosing the color of text, hyperlinks, disabled text, buttons and so on. So to open the High Contrast settings click on the High Contrast link. Here you have a drop-down list, in this drop-down list, you have four options, High Contrast #1, High Contrast #2, High Contrast Black and High Contrast White. Here you can choose your desired one and select the colors depending on your requirements. And finally, click on the Apply button to fix them.

Figure 7. High Contrast

Closed Captioning

Windows 10 is introducing a new setting option for Ease of Access. This new feature is known as Closed Captioning. Using Closed Captioning we can apply the settings for the Fonts and the Background in Windows 10.

Figure 8. Closed Captioning

As we show in the figure, there are two sections for Closed Captioning. The first section is the Font section. In that section, we can choose the Caption Color, Caption Transparency, Caption Style, Caption Size and Caption Effects using their respectively drop-down lists. The second section is related to the Windows background. In that section, we can set the Background color, Background Transparency, Windows color and Windows transparency using their respectively drop-down list. There is also a restore to defaults button. This button is used to restore the default settings.

Keyboard

This setting is used for the on-Screen keyboard. If you do not have a keyboard then using it you have hot on the screen keyboard. The Keyboard feature in Windows 10 is similar to Windows 10. So for the keyboard in Windows 10, using Ease of Access is very simple. Just click on the keyboard link, then you have the window. Here just turn on the On-Screen Keyboard. Here you also have the option for Sticky key, Toggle key, and Filter key.

Figure 9. On-screen keyboard

After turning on the on-screen keyboard you will have a keyboard like this. Now you can use this keyboard.

Figure 10. keyboard

Mouse

The mouse settings in Windows 10 Ease of Access are the same as the Windows 8 Ease of Access settings. In mouse settings, we can choose the Mouse pointer size and the pointer color. Here you also have an option to lock and unlock mouse keys when num lock is on.

Figure 11. Mouse settings

Other Options

This is the last setting in the Ease of Access. This is related to Visual settings. In this section, you will see options like to turn on/off the Windows animations, show Windows background and so on. Here we can also select the thickness of our cursor. We also choose the time for Windows notification that appears from time to time. We can also choose the Visual notification sound using Visual settings.

Figure 12. Visual settings in Ease of Access.

Summary

I think many people have never used the Ease of Access settings because people are aware of them. But I am sure if people are aware of the Ease of Access features then they will use it very often. Because it provides very fantastic features. I hope that using this article, people can learn easily how to use Ease of Access and they can easily apply the settings depending on their requirements. In Windows 10 the new features have been added to Ease of Access and are known as Closed Captioning. I think it will be beneficial for users. So enjoy the Windows 10.