I am recording testing sessions with screen readers (e.g., JAWS, NVDA) to train colleagues in browser accessibility testing for our content. I want to display all keystrokes on the screen in real-time to help learners follow along without manual video editing.
I’ve tried various methods, but none seem to display the keystrokes used to control the screen reader itself:
-
Windows Accessibility Screen Keyboard: This tool only shows Ctrl,
Alt, Shift, and a few other keys when pressed on the physical
keyboard. -
Utilities like Carnac: While they do display keypresses, they don’t
capture the screen reader’s control keypresses, which is what I need. -
Screen reader text display: These windows only show the text
being read out, not the key presses as they happen.
I’ve reached out to Freedom Scientific (vendors of JAWS), who confirmed there’s no built-in mode to display keypresses.
I’ve considered other options:
- I can’t use a keylogger due to corporate policies.
- Recording my keyboard with a camera might work but is impractical and
unsynchronized with the video.
Questions:
- Do screen readers intercept keyboard input at a low level?
- Is there a way to monitor and display the raw keystrokes on-screen before they’re intercepted by the system or other software?
- Alternatively,is there a a way to configure JAWS, NVDA, or other screenreaders to echo all keypresses?
