Quick Describe demo: transcript

Kelly Ford, October 2026. The second voice is JAWS reading Quick Describe's results.

Kelly: Hello everyone, this is Kelly Ford, and I wanted to give a short demo of a new app I'm calling Quick Describe. If you follow my blog or my projects, you know I've been working on various image description projects for a while. I started with something I called the Image Description Toolkit, and that's been around for about a year and a half. It is a full range of tools for working with AI models and descriptions. Earlier this week, I released something I called My Photo Library Described, and that uses on-device AI on both Mac and Windows to describe your default photo library or any folders you add to the product. I decided to add one more tool to the portfolio, if you will, and this is again something I'm calling Quick Describe. It's really meant, once again right now only for Windows, to use the on-device AI, if you have what Microsoft used to call a Copilot PC, to do quick descriptions. So by running the app, you can press various hotkeys for a description of the screen, the active window, the item with focus, whatever's on the clipboard, or give the app a file. It's really meant to be that straightforward and that simple. And I know that JAWS, Narrator and NVDA have ways of doing this. This is just meant to be using only the on-device technology, and just a quick app for anybody that wants this, independent of whatever the screen reader offers. I'll give you a short demo. So I'm in the Calculator app, and I've already launched Quick Describe. I've set my hotkeys, which you can customize in settings, to be Control, Shift and, for example, S for screen. So I'm going to press that.

JAWS: Describing screen. Quick Describe. Result edit, read only, contains text. Use your reading keys to read the text. The image displays a calculator interface with a black background and a black button bar. The calculator is set to standard mode. The display shows a number of zeros and buttons for mathematical operations, including MC clear, MR memory, M plus slash memory plus slash minus. The C button is selected, and the time is shown as 10:44 AM on the date 10/17/2026. 39 lines of text follow.

Kelly: So you'll notice it also said 39 lines of text follow. The app also runs Windows OCR.

JAWS: Calculator, Standard.

Kelly: We'll do Control Shift W for the active window.

JAWS: Describing active window. Calculator. Quick Describe. Result edit, read only, contains text. Use your reading keys to read the text. The image displays a calculator interface with a black background. The top part of the screen shows a number of buttons, which includes numbers 0 to 9.

Kelly: And I've stopped the reading. So let's describe a picture. I've navigated to File Explorer, and I've got a file. There's different ways I can do this. In this case, I'm going to hit Control C to copy it to my clipboard, and then I'm just going to paste it in the app.

JAWS: The image depicts a serene landscape with a clear, cloudless sky. In the foreground, a winding road threads through a mosaic of greenery, suggesting a rural, natural setting. The mountain range in the background shows a variety of elevations, from gentle slopes to steep, rugged peaks, in a gradient of shades from dark green to lighter, muted tones. The atmosphere is calm and peaceful, with the sky's soft hues and the clear view of the mountains.

Kelly: So that's just a short example of the sorts of things you can do with Quick Describe. Again: the screen, the active window, and, though I didn't show it, the item with focus, and items on the clipboard. You can get a copy of Quick Describe, along with any of my other projects, on my project page, at theideaplace.net/projects. If you give any of my projects, including Quick Describe, a try, or have feedback, I'd love to hear about it.