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JAWS on Windows

Use this page as the Windows-specific reference for JAWS when your accessibility program standardizes on Freedom Scientific tooling alongside or instead of NVDA.

When to use this​

Use JAWS when your team needs to validate important desktop screen-reader flows on Windows and compare behavior across assistive technologies.

Onboarding: start a productive session​

  1. Launch JAWS before the browser if your IT policy requires it; otherwise JAWS attaches to the active window.
  2. Open Chrome or Edge (match your automated scan browsers where possible).
  3. Press Insert + Space to enter Forms mode when interacting with native controls, and return to virtual cursor for reading-heavy pages (JAWS announces mode changes).
  4. Use Insert + F6 for headings list, Insert + F7 for links list, fast ways to audit IA after a scan.
  5. Document findings with speech history (Insert + Space, then H) when filing bugs.

What to validate​

  • screen-reader announcement quality
  • control labels and state changes
  • table, form, and dialog behavior
  • keyboard-only task completion

Pairing with Accessibility reports​

  1. Pick the top five automated issues from All Issues.
  2. Reproduce each with JAWS active; note whether the issue is real-world blocking or a false positive.
  3. Update tickets with JAWS-specific notes (version, synthesizer) for engineering.
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