Search Engines
Search engines on the World Wide Web are remotely accessible programs that let you do keyword searches for information on the Internet. There are several types of search engines and searches may cover titles of documents, URL's, headers, or full text. Keep in mind that the results you get from one search engine may not match the results you get from another search engine. In fact, they are often different due to the way each search engine behaves. Therefore, it may actually be beneficial to use more than one search engine on a regular basis.
In this section, we briefly look at Google and Yahoo!. Web pages are often dynamic and can change at any time. As a result, you may find that if either site changes, your experience with JAWS may be different than what is described here.
Google
When you first go to the Google Web site there is a blinking cursor in an edit box where you can type the word or phrase that you are interested in.
Google Instant is a search enhancement that shows results as you type. It is designed to predict a person's search by updating the page and showing results while you type. It is a time-saving feature. However, because the page is changing as you type this can sometimes cause problems for screen reader users. You may find a link on the page that reads "Screen reader users, click here to turn off Google Instant." If you choose this link it makes your searches using a screen reader much easier.
To change your preferences for Google you can do the following:
Press INSERT+F7 to open the JAWS list of links.
Choose the link Options, and then press ENTER. A links submenu opens on the Google site.
Press DOWN ARROW to move to the link Search Settings, and then press ENTER.
Beneath the heading Google Instant predictions is an On/Off slider bar. At the time of this writing it does not read well with JAWS. Press ENTER on it to go into forms mode.
Press DOWN ARROW on this slider bar to turn the feature off.
Press NUM PAD PLUS to get out of forms mode.
Press B to move to the Save button at the bottom of the page, and then activate it by pressing ENTER.
To begin searching, for users of JAWS prior to version 10.0, the first thing you need to do is press the ENTER key to go into Forms Mode with JAWS. Once you are in Forms Mode, you can then type in keywords that will define your search.
If you are using JAWS 10.0 or later, forms mode comes on automatically when you get to a Web page which has the focus set to a blinking cursor in an edit box. If for some reason forms mode does not come on automatically on your computer, you can also press ENTER to go into forms mode, or you can press INSERT+F5 to open the Select a Form Field dialog box for JAWS.