Essential Second Life Skills
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 Skill | Example | Used for: |
|---|---|---|
| 1) type text | Enter “Hello, welcome to Second Life.” | Communication 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 | Communication with others, such as receiving and responding to invitations |
What if you can not do one or more of the above skills?
If you are blind or visually impaired and will be accessing Second Life using a screen reader rather than visually, please contact us before attempting to enter Second Life. You can have a full, rich SL experience, but you will need to download a different viewer and interface it properly with your screen reader software. Please contact us and we will assist you to join us in the virtual world community.
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 visit RESNA (Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America.)