Using the Virtual Ribbon in MS Word 2007 - JAWS

Applying and Understanding the JAWS Virtual Ribbon

The ribbon-style interface is kind of old hat now but I'm pretty sure that there are more than a few of you out there who are still grappling with it. In addition, I'm sure there will be a few of you who may have heard of the JAWS virtual ribbon a while back but have never given it a go, opting instead to soldier on stoically with the default ribbon interface. Well, in this post I'm going to refresh on some of this discussion, walk through the virtual ribbon and then probably tell you why you may not want to use it any more...

Introduced in JAWS 12, the virtual ribbon was designed to make navigation of the new so-called "ribbon" interface that we all know and love a more familiar experience. I'm sure we can all think of at least one horror show moment where more time than necessary was wasted trying to locate a specific option in MS Word. But this wasn't the only problem we faced, what was really frustrating for a lot of speech users was that the ribbon didn't appear to make any navigational sense at all. The whole relationship between tabs, groups and commands just seemed hopelessly arbitrary with speech and keyboard.

A lot of the problem was due to the lack of what I call "meaningful restriction" - in that there really wasn't much of it in the ribbon and, to be fair, there still isn't. Put simply, having the reassurance of boundaries while you navigate allows you to build meaning from your route. This tends to be a series of escalating steps with appropriate choices, progressively fewer, at each point. The ribbon though just felt like a jumble of commands and control types lashed together. If you were lucky, you could get to the command you needed eventually, but the necessary steps were somewhere between "hit TAB 20 times" or "hit TAB 35 times."

The virtual ribbon came along to provide a bit more meaning for PC using speech users who were flummoxed by this new interface. It aimed to do this mainly by introducing a restriction at the group level, no longer could you just step off the upper ribbon tabs and be focused straight on a specific command in the lower ribbon. No, the virtual ribbon forced a focus on to the group level first and then, after the correct group was in focus, you could choose to move through the commands in that group only. The latter was an important point; it stopped you overshooting a command which would often result in you then navigating halfway across the entire program.

To really understand the differences here, let's compare and contrast the steps you take in the vanilla and virtual ribbon approaches. The scenario here is a common one, moving to the Insert tab and navigating to the Insert Page Number command. For the time being, just read through each example and pay attention to the differences.

Example 1: Navigating to Insert Page Number without the Virtual Ribbon

1. Tap the ALT key to the move to the upper ribbon in MS Word.
2. ARROW RIGHT or LEFT and focus on the Insert tab.
3. Use the DOWN ARROW to move to the lower ribbon, then use the TAB key to move through the commands.
4. Keep using the TAB key to move all the way along the lower ribbon. Eventually, you will have focus on the Page Number command, in the Header and Footer Group box.
5. With focus on the correct command, use the SPACEBAR to open the drop down menu.

Example 2: Navigating to Insert Page Number using the Virtual Ribbon

1. Use ALT to move to the upper ribbon, JAWS will indicate that "virtual ribbons" are on.
2. ARROW RIGHT or LEFT and focus on the Insert tab.
3. Use the DOWN ARROW to move to the lower ribbon, focus will be in the Pages group. JAWS will indicate that you have focus on the "Pages submenu".
4. Press the TAB key to move through the other formal groups of commands, which JAWS announces as "Submenus".
5. With focus on the "Header and Footer submenu", use the RIGHT ARROW to open the submenu and then DOWN ARROW to move through all the commands. Notice that you loop back to the first command in the submenu as you might expect - you are restricted to navigating through the commands in tha specific group.
6. Use the ESCAPE key three times to leave the ribbon area and return to your document.

Notice the major differences between the two routes, with the virtual ribbon on, JAWS interprets the group structure as submenu's and, just as in a submenu, your focus is restricted to the menu choices. By contrast, with the virtual ribbon off, it's more a case of getting to the right tab in the upper ribbon and then moving through the lower ribbon however many times it takes to find the right command.

Okay, so that's all the theory! But, the best way to establish whether something is going to work for you or not, is to try it out. Before you do that however, you need to switch the JAWS virtual ribbon mode on if it isn't already.

Toggling the Virtual Cursor On and Off

The virtual ribbon is a setting you can check or uncheck in the default JAWS settings file. If you try and activate this feature in the Word or Excel specific settings file you'll hear a message reminding you that the virtual ribbon option is a default file only choice. So, if you were thinking that you could have the virtual ribbon on in MS Word but not in MS Excel think again! Anyway, let's go through the process:

1. Use INSERT F2 to open the Run JAWS Manager list box.
2. Tap the letter S key until you have focus on the Settings Centre option and press ENTER.
3. The JAWS Settings Centre dialogue box opens with focus in a search edit field. The first thing to do here is use CONTROL SHIFT D, this will load in the Default JAWS settings file. (If you don't do this, JAWS will remind you to make the change as you will be unable to activate the virtual ribbon option otherwise.)
4. With the default settings file loaded in, move to the search field. (Note that if you ever need to move to this search box directly you can use the keystroke of CONTROL E.) With focus in the search field, type: virtual ribbon.
5. Use the DOWN ARROW to move to the single result. Listen to whether JAWS indicates that the "Use Virtual Ribbon Menu" option is checked or not. Use the SPACEBAR at this point to check or uncheck the option as necessary and INSERT UP ARROW to confirm the setting.
6. Press the TAB key to move to the OK button and use SPACEBAR to activate it.

An easy way to check if you have the virtual ribbon running or not is to simply move to the upper ribbon and listen to the feedback. Without the virtual cursor running, JAWS will indicate "upper ribbon" when you use the ALT key. But, with the virtual ribbon setting active, JAWS will instead indicate "virtual ribbons".

Another Virtual Ribbon Example: Page Orientation

To wrap up the work here I want to run through another example with the virtual ribbon running so that you really get a feel for how it is meant to work. This time around we are going to the Orientation command in the Page Layout tab:

1. Press the ALT key to move to the upper ribbon, JAWS indicates "virtual ribbons".
2. Use LEFT and RIGHT ARROW as necessary to focus on the Page Layout ribbon tab.
3. Use the DOWN ARROW to move to the lower ribbon. JAWS will indicate that you have focus in the "Themes submenu".
4. Use the TAB key to move focus to the next group/submenu, JAWS will indicate "Page Setup submenu".
5. Use the RIGHT ARROW to open this submenu and press DOWN ARROW to navigate to the Orientation drop down button.
6. Activate the button with SPACEBAR and DOWN ARROW through the two listbox choices, these are: Portrait, Landscape. Activate either with the ENTER key, focus will return to the document. Alternatively, press the ESCAPE key several times to exit without doing anything.

I hope that in this post I have managed to communicate the fundamental differences between the two approaches. The virtual ribbon is the more guided approach and you may find that it suits the way you work. The virtual ribbon certainly makes more sense if you are a relatively new recruit to the ribbon interface. However, my own opinion is that the virtual ribbon is not necessarily the best way to go for everyone.

Why do I say this? Well, in Office 2007 where you had much more restriction on how you could customise the ribbon, the virtual ribbon made a lot of sense - especially as people were getting over the shock of the new interface. But by the time of Office 2010, with its ability to hide the default ribbon and create your own tabs, the purpose of the virtual ribbon seemed already under siege. The point is this: if you are creating your own ribbon tabs and groups, then having the virtual ribbon active might actually slow things down for you.

That said, for all the customisation power in Office 2010 and above, I know very few people who are making use of it. So, in that sense, the virtual ribbon is still an option. The best thing is to try it out for a while and see how you get on. (But I'll bet you'll soon return to spamming the TAB key fifty times to get to your ribbon commands...)

Have fun!