Virtual Ability, Inc.

Ability Issues and Assistive Technology Referral

In order to successfully move and operate your character in Second Life, you need to be able to perform a series of basic keyboard and mouse operations. You should be able to perform all of the following essential skills, either on your own or by using assistive technology, before you proceed.

Essential SL skill	Example	Used for:
1) type text	Enter “Hello, welcome to Second Life.”	Communicating with others
2) press and hold a keyboard key for several seconds	Hold the “arrow” key down for 5 seconds	Moving your character
3) press two keys on opposite sides of the keyboard	Hold the Control key (Command key if using a Mac) while at the same time pressing an arrow key	Controlling your character
4) move the mouse and press its buttons	Move the cursor to a point on the screen and click	Controlling your character
5) press and hold a key, while at the same time moving the mouse and pressing a mouse button	Hold the “Alt” key, while pressing the mouse button and moving the mouse	Controlling your character, including adjusting your character’s point of view, or line of sight
6) see the computer screen well enough to read text from it	Read text from transient popup screens	Communicating with others, such as receiving and responding to invitations

What if you can not do one or more of the above skills?

Based on our experience, we strongly encourage you to contact a local Assistive Technology expert who can help enable you to perform these functions on your computer before you attempt to enter Second Life. There is a wide variety of assistive technology that can be used to help perform these functions, including: adaptive keyboards, alternative types of mouse, voice-recognition software that can type spoken text and control mouse movements, on-screen keyboards that you can type with a stylus or other pointing device, and many more.

If you would like help finding and contacting a professional Assistive Technology provider in your area, please click http://www.resna.org/find/index.php.

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