Research It - JAWS V15 - BBC Headlines - News Summary

Checking the BBC Headlines via JAWS Research It

One of the more under-used recent features in JAWS must be the Research It feature. This is a real shame as it does have some pretty funky tricks in its bag, my own personal favourite being how easy it is to aggregate the headline stories on the BBC website in a JAWS virtual window. If you haven't given this a try, this is how you do it:

Reading the BBC Headlines with JAWS Research It

1. With JAWS running, press INSERT SPACEBAR and you should hear a sharp clicking sound.
2. Tap letter R to open the Research It dialog box.
3. Press TAB to move into a list view, your focus will most likely be on the top item which is "Wiktionary".
4. Press the DOWN ARROW - or use first letter navigation - to reach the list item labelled BBC Top News Stories.
5. With the BBC News Stories item in focus press the ENTER key.
6. After a short delay, focus will move to a JAWS virtual window containing the top BBC News headlines. Read the information in the usual way, using the UP and DOWN ARROW keys for example.

NOTE: Each section in the virtual viewer contains a hyperlink, when you activate it your default web browser will open and focus will move to the specific headline page on the BBC site.

Pretty neat feature - it's a shame it is so well hidden away! This really does give a JAWS user a quick and efficient way of checking the main news headlines on the BBC.

Have fun!