What You’ll Learn
- How to navigate websites with NVDA the way screen reader users do.
- The most powerful NVDA shortcuts to test faster and with more confidence.
- How screen reader navigation uncovers hidden accessibility barriers.
In our first post of this series, Cody Care, Accessibility Engineer at EBSCO Information Services, covered what a screen reader is and why it’s essential. Now, let’s take the next step: learning how to navigate effectively with NVDA.
Whether you're actively testing or simply want a better understanding of how blind users interact with digital content, this guide offers practical insights into the keystrokes that enable efficient navigation.
Why Navigation Matters
Screen readers don’t just read text; they also provide a structured way to navigate content. Sighted users visually scan a page in seconds. Screen reader users navigate intentionally, moving element by element using keyboard commands.
For accessibility testers, understanding this process is critical. When navigation is inefficient, confusing or unstructured, that’s often where accessibility barriers appear.
The Screen Reader Perspective
The web is vast — borderline infinite — and for blind users like me, understanding it isn’t about seeing everything at once. It’s about exploring it piece by piece through the structure a developer has built.
I like to think of every website as a neighborhood and each webpage as a house. Each one is built, painted, and furnished differently, but at their core, they follow the same idea: rooms, sections, and the things inside them.
Landmarks = The Rooms of the House
A webpage may include a header, a navigation region, a main content area, or a footer. These landmarks don’t just organize the page; they help me understand where I am.
Moving through landmarks with the D key is like walking from the entryway to the living room to the kitchen. Even if I’ve never been “inside” the house before, I can quickly orient myself by stepping through its major spaces.
Headings = The Furniture Inside Each Room
Once I’m in a room, I need to know what’s there. Headings act like the large, important objects that help you orient yourself — the couch, the desk, the TV. They tell me what the section is about.
Using the H key, I can jump between major sections and decide where to spend my time. The number keys 1–6 allow me to move by heading level, revealing whether the content is properly structured.
Interactive Elements = The Things You Can Use
Links, buttons, checkboxes, and edit fields are the handles, switches, and drawers of the house. They allow me to open, submit, reveal, or type.
NVDA provides single-letter shortcuts to move directly to these elements. When they are coded correctly, navigation feels efficient and intentional. When they’re not, the experience becomes frustrating — like stumbling through a dark hallway with Legos on the floor.
Understanding how users “move through the house” helps make the web more usable and more welcoming.
Basic Navigation Keys
These keys move through text and interactive elements:
- Tab: Move forward through interactive elements (buttons, links, menus, form fields).
- Shift + Tab: Move backward through interactive elements.
- Up/Down Arrows: Move line by line.
- Left/Right Arrows: Move character by character, including punctuation and spaces.
- Control + Left/Right Arrows: Move word by word.
- Control + Up/Down Arrows: Move by paragraph.
Letter Navigation Keys
Each element on a webpage has a role that NVDA interprets and announces. Users can also navigate directly by those roles. These shortcuts significantly improve testing efficiency.
- Shift + [Key]: Move backward by the specified element
- E: Edit fields
- R: Radio buttons
- T: Tables
- D: Landmarks/regions
- F: Form fields
- G: Graphics/images
- H: Headings
- 1–6: Headings by level
- K: Links
- U: Unvisited links
- V: Visited links
- L: Lists
- I: List items
- X: Checkboxes
- C: Combo boxes
- B: Buttons
Helpful Commands
- NVDA Key + 1: Start Input Help mode to practice keystrokes. Press again to exit.
- NVDA Key + N: Open the NVDA menu.
- NVDA Key + Tab: Announce the currently focused element.
- NVDA Key + F7: Open the Elements List to browse links, headings, form fields, buttons and landmarks in one place.
Speech Viewer
If you prefer to see what NVDA is announcing rather than hear it, enable Speech Viewer. This tool displays screen reader output in plain text, which can be copied and pasted for documentation or reporting.
To enable:
- NVDA Menu → Tools → Speech Viewer
To create a custom shortcut:
- NVDA Menu → Preferences → Input Gestures
- Filter for “Speech Viewer.”
- Select Add
- Suggested gesture: NVDA key + V (apply to All Keyboard Layouts)
Final Thoughts
Navigation shortcuts are not just for convenience; instead, they are essential tools for independence and efficiency. For accessibility testers, they are also diagnostic tools. The way a page responds to these commands reveals how well it has been structured.
By learning these keystrokes, you not only strengthen your testing workflow but also gain a deeper understanding of the inclusive design practices that make digital experiences accessible to all.
