Adjusting Vison Settings in the Ease of Access Center

Written by Barry Dysert (last updated October 15, 2018)

The Vision settings in the Ease of Access Center deal with the display, cursor & pointer size, Magnifier, color filters, contrast, and the Narrator. To start, press the WINDOWS key, type (without the quotes) “Settings,” and press ENTER. Click the Ease of Access group, and you’ll see the Ease of Access Center: (See Figure 1.)

Figure 1. Settings’ Ease of Access Center.

This window opens to the first of the Vision-related Ease of Access settings, viz., the display. Here, you can change the size of apps and text on other displays and change the size and color of your cursor and mouse pointer. You do this by clicking the links of the same name and following the instructions for exactly what it is you’re wanting to do.

You can also adjust the brightness of your monitor and simplify and personalize Windows. Since I have no vision impairments (other than wearing corrective lenses), the defaults are fine for me. I do, however, want to mention a couple of settings you may want to change. One is the setting titled “Automatically hide scroll bars in Windows.” I turn that off because I don’t want to go searching for scroll bars when it’s obvious that the whole thing isn’t fitting within the current window.

The other setting you may want to adjust is the one titled “Show notifications for.” This setting determines for how long a notification stays on your screen before it disappears. The default is five seconds, but if you find that amount of time insufficient to read the notification you can adjust it all the way up to five minutes.

The next group of settings under Vision allows you to adjust the cursor & pointer size. Here you can change the thickness of the cursor when typing, change the pointer’s size and color, and change the touch feedback if you have a touchscreen.

Next comes the Magnifier. You use the Magnifier to zoom in on parts of your display. The Magnifier can run in full screen, in a separate window, or as a lens that follows your mouse pointer around the screen. I’ve found that it takes some experimentation to get comfortable with the Magnifier, but if you invest the time, it will pay off when you try to see extra-small material. It’s also good if you’re displaying your screen in a presentation and others find that certain parts are difficult to see. When you have the Magnifier configured to suit (or even when you’re just experimenting with it), you turn it on by pressing WINDOWS+EQUALS. Pressing WINDOWS+ESC turns it off.

The next Vision group is that for color filters. Ordinarily you’d leave the color filters turned off, but if you have a condition like color blindness you may find that making some adjustments really helps.

The final group of Vision settings deals with the contrast of your monitor. The idea is that by turning on high contrast you make text and apps easier to see by using more distinct colors. If you turn on high contrast (something that gives me a headache, personally), you can also choose a theme to go with it. You can also customize the high contrast colors for the various parts of a window, like text, hyperlinks, disabled text, selected text, button text, and the background.

 This tip (13573) applies to Windows 10.

Author Bio

Barry Dysert

Barry has been a computer professional for over 35 years, working in different positions such as technical team leader, project manager, and software developer. He is currently a software engineer with an emphasis on developing custom applications under Microsoft Windows. When not working with Windows or writing Tips, Barry is an amateur writer. His first non-fiction book is titled "A Chronological Commentary of Revelation." ...

MORE FROM BARRY

Permanently Deleting a File

If you have a file that you're sure you want to permanently delete (instead of having it go to the Recycle Bin) it's an ...

Discover More

Using the SHIFT Statement

Sometimes your batch file needs to accept an unknown number of parameters. This is easy to deal with if you know about ...

Discover More

Filtering a Folder's Content

If you have lots of files on your computer, it is helpful to filter the files to more easily find a specific one. When ...

Discover More
More WindowsTips

Quickly Deactivate Apps that Impact Startup

Windows will load apps at startup, which can impact performance. Quickly deactivate startup items that can affect the ...

Discover More

Remove Shortcut when You Make a Shortcut

When you create a shortcut in Windows 10, by default the text "- Shortcut" is added to the end of the shortcut's name. By ...

Discover More

Adding a Tile to the Start Screen

The Start screen can serve as your launching pad for whatever programs you desire. Here's how to add tiles for your ...

Discover More
Comments

If you would like to add an image to your comment (not an avatar, but an image to help in making the point of your comment), include the characters [{fig}] (all 7 characters, in the sequence shown) in your comment text. You’ll be prompted to upload your image when you submit the comment. Maximum image size is 6Mpixels. Images larger than 600px wide or 1000px tall will be reduced. Up to three images may be included in a comment. All images are subject to review. Commenting privileges may be curtailed if inappropriate images are posted.

What is five minus 3?

There are currently no comments for this tip. (Be the first to leave your comment—just use the simple form above!)


Newest Tips