Seminars@Hadley

Facebook Basics for Screen Reader Users

Presented by Ian Shadrick

Moderated by Ed Haines

October 21, 2015

Ed HainesWelcome to Seminars@Hadley. Today’s seminar is entitled Facebook Basics for Screen Reader Users. My name is Ed Haines and I’m an instructor at the Hadley School. If you are new to Facebook or interested in joining Facebook for the first time and you’re a screen reader user then this seminar is intended for you.

Our presenter Hadley instructor Ian Shadrick will discuss the basics of creating a Facebook account and navigating through Facebook. Today you will also learn about status updates, posts, likes and some creative uses for Facebook. So now without further ado I’m going to hand the microphone over to Ian Shadrick.

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Ian ShadrickHello and welcome to today’s seminar; Facebook Basics for Screen Reader Users. I want to take the time to thank you for joining us today. We appreciate you taking time out of your busy days to come and join us for the seminar today regarding Facebook.

Hopefully today’s seminar will help you if you are someone who is either new to Facebook or you’re considering joining. Really the intent of today is to kind of give you some really good foundational pieces and just an overview of what it is that’s possible without Facebook using a screen reader and to do some basic navigation, basic interactions, things of that nature and give you a really good jumping-off point.

So a couple of things I wanted to point out today for the purposes of today’s demonstration the majority of our time will be spent discussing Facebook from a mobile perspective for a couple of reasons. First of all that tends to be the most typical way that the end-user is using Facebook at this point is through the mobile app and through some type of mobile device, whether that’s through the actual Facebook page or whether that’s through the app.

In addition to that, we’re also focusing primarily on the use of Facebook as a VoiceOver user. With that said we will talk about how to do some basic navigation using other screen readers, primarily things like

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JAWS if you were to go to, say the Facebook website and navigate from your computer. The primary purpose again today is really focusing on the mobile application. However, we will touch on both elements of that.

Okay. And the other thing I wanted to touch on briefly was just the concept that today’s presentation is based on the current iteration of Facebook as it stands in the middle of October 2015. And the reason for that, caveat so to speak is that Facebook is now in a phase where it’s making bi-weekly updates. So as a result of that some of these elements that we talk about you know today may change next week; some for the better, maybe some for the worst.

It’s not typical at this stage that when an update happens they do what we consider breaking the app or the page in this case. But it is something to be mindful of that as those updates happen you could see changes for overall accessibility. So just keep that in mind as we’re moving through today’s session or if you’re viewing today’s session later and maybe something doesn’t jive with exactly what you’re seeing or how things are interacting for you. Please note that.

So I wanted to begin by talking a little bit about the overall process for joining Facebook and the sign-up process, what that looks like. It’s actually then simplified quite a bit that done away with some of the

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things that were previously problematic for screen reader users, so those are a couple of things I wanted to point out as well.

So we’ll talk about this for the purposes of this demonstration for actually standing out, we’ll talk about this actually from the website perspective, just because it’s a clean navigation not to say that it’s on possible from the mobile application because it absolutely is, but just know that essentially it’s the same process.

So when you first go to the Facebook website, you’re going to find a series of edit boxes there. The first of those is going to essentially ask for your name. So as you navigate through those, you’re going to get first name, last name. And then you get a choice of either your e-mail or your mobile number. Again, some of these things that we’re going to talk about today are very much up to your perspective and how you want to have things displayed out there in cyberspace.

So that is one caveat to that. You can choose either an e-mail or a mobile number. More often than not people are choosing still e-mail, but at the same time you do have the option of using a mobile number and that’s perfectly your choice. The next box is going to be essentially whichever of those you chosen you’re going to re-enter that. Okay, it’s then going to ask you to accept their terms and their privacies, privacy considerations, terms of agreement things like that.

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Once you do that you can sign-up. I apologize, I forgot two other elements; those are both your birthday and your gender. Again, you know, in theory you could edit that birthday so that as long as you’re over I believe it’s 13 you should be able to create an account. But beyond that, technically there’s nothing saying that you have to enter your actual birthdate. You can edit that to be however you want to be. Same with gender, you have a choice on that. It’s a radial button so you can select that, so that’s not a problem.

Beyond those, you move down to the terms of agreement. You hit the checkbox to accept that and then sign up. Once you sign up and hit that sign-up button there is no CAPTCHA, there is nothing of that nature to necessarily go in and stop you from an accessibility standpoint as was previously the case.

In the past we’ve known CAPTCHAs to be a significant problem both from a blindness elevation perspective, but also for those who may any dual. Since we have lost some hearing difficulty even when CAPTCHAs have that audio component, sometimes they can still be problematic. So it’s nice that they’ve done away with that CAPTCHA. Now, please note that as of the current version. There may be something in the future that of course is going to change that or where they choose to change that.

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But as of now they have gone away with that CAPTCHA.

The one thing to know that if you are using e-mail specifically for the sign-up you will – when you’re taken to your initial page you’re going to see a banner that’s going to ask you to go to your e-mail and actually confirm that. So they will be sending you a link to confirm that you did sign-up for that. And you can also do that from the page as well and there is an option there to enter the code that they have given you via e-mail, and/or to change your e-mail or resend that confirmation e-mail. So just know that if you’re using e-mail to sign up for your account that is one of the things that you’re going to have to do.

With your mobile number they should be sending you typically a text or a message of some type to give you the same type of code where you can confirm that from your device. So that’s something to consider as well.

So the other thing I want to caution everyone with is something we’ll talk in more detail about later, but just as you’re doing the sign up just know that you can take measures for consideration of privacy. So an example if for some reason you needed to not have your full name out there or you needed to display a different name not only in your sign up but also within your profile settings there are ways to edit those things so that you can have things displayed

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differently based on your needs for your own privacy considerations. We’ll talk as I said in more detail later about some of the privacy settings and some of the things you can do and we’ll demonstrate some of those.

What I’d like to do now is since we have talked about the overall sign up and just the ease with which you can do that, I like to move now to the mobile app itself and give you a basic overview of what it is that you’re going to experience when you first login and once you’ve done the login and you launch your mobile app.

So once you’ve done that – Today’s version of the mobile app that we’re talking about again is using VoiceOver so we are doing it from an i device. Keep in mind of the basic layout is the same whether you’re using VoiceOver and an iPhone or iPad or an Android device, Windows device, all of those kinds of things. The basic layout of the app is the same. The primary difference here would be with Android for instance maybe some of your gestures to navigate, what the overall concepts are going to be the same. So again for purposes of demonstration we’re going to be using both server.

So as I load the app the first thing that’s going to pop-up is going to be my search box. So what you’ll find there is a basic search box and as you heard the VoiceOver say I can double tap to edit that. Within

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that search box I can type a number of things. I can do a keyword search if I’m searing for a specific type of story. I can do a name search if I’m searching for an individual. If I’m searching for a business name, all of those types of things. So it’s a very generic search box similar to a search engine. Just know that essentially you can use that however you choose.Okay. If I select to my right I’m going to find a quick launch to my messenger. So message friends. If I double tap on that button what I’m going to get is a quick launch for my friends on Facebook that are currently live and within the chat feature. Okay. If I keep swiping, I’m going to swipe to the right one more time and I’m going to actually drop down to the next line and get my status.

And that’s actually where we’re going to start out in terms of making changes or doing any updates at this point. So if I double tap on status – Okay. So what I’ve done, I’ve actually gone back to the very top of that screen just to give you an indication of what’s at the top of the screen, because typically your focus once you open that status update will move you to the textbox, which is basically just an open area for you to begin typing. But I wanted to give you just a quick understanding of what it is that you have at the top.

So in the upper left hand corner you have a cancel. You can have your heading of update status. Your post which once you’ve typed a message will be there. Choose audience. That’s one important

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feature in terms of privacy. You can double tap that option and it will show you who you can select, so whether that’s friends, whether that’s no one, whether that’s everyone etc. I give you the option of essentially who gets to see your post.

Okay. So your text will automatically put you at the start and what you get is text mode is editing. At that point I can double tap, I can begin to type a message. And once I type that message then my post will actually light up and give me the option to post that message, but just as an example let me type in a quick message. Okay. So my autocorrect took over there and we’ve got a rest. Okay, so rest is nice. Once I’m done with my message if I continue to swipe to the right I’m going to drop-down to another menu.

From here, I can choose photos or video. That’s going to launch your camera roll or your video options depending on which one you’re choosing. And I can choose friends. And what that does is that gives me the option to actually tag people. By tagging someone essentially you are adding them to the post so that they get alerts. Every time you get an alert regarding this post they will say – it will say, “With,” and give the person’s name. And depending on how they have their settings they will see updates on that same post.

Okay, attach a link. So if you have a link that you want to post. State what you’re doing. So that’s an

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emoticon where you can do faces or talk about your – gives kind of an automatic feelings piece that you can do. And then lastly, you can choose a place. Okay, so you can say, “Going to Starbucks,” and you can choose where that Starbucks is located as example based on your location. Now the thing to keep in mind there is if you have location settings on that particular feature is going to be much more active and accurate than if you’re having to manually input that information.

So an example, if we wanted to post a picture what I would do is I would go back to picture and video. If I double tap – Okay. Now it’s loaded my camera roll and it will then let me move through my camera roll. Click on image or double tap on an image in this case and it will load the given image. Now, we’re not going into specifics today on necessarily how to navigate your own photos and get in to all of those elements of photos and videos. I would encourage you to take a look at our seminar on taking photos as a VoiceOver user. However, just know that if you were to want to load a photo or a video this is what it’s going to do; it’s going to load your camera roll in this instance and give you the option to do that.

Now if you were using the computer the difference being it’s going to load your images from your folder where you have videos or pictures located within your camera – or excuse me, within your computer. Okay, so from here we’ll actually go back to our original

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message. Okay, so we’re back to my original message. At this point I’m actually going to cancel out of that message. So at that point if you choose to cancel a post one of the things that you will get is it’s going to warn you ahead of time and tell you that it’s going to be discarded. In this case I’m perfectly happy with that, but it is just a quick heads up to say, “Hey, did you really mean to do that?”

However, if I were to post it I would actually get an alert, you know, a sound that will post. Doesn’t then do significantly much more than that, although there is a banner at the top that will say, “Posted.” So that will be right out as well.

Okay, so we’re back to our Facebook app and the basic navigation there. We’re again at status on the upper left. So one of the things to point out real quickly with regard to status updates, again those are things that you’re posting. There are quick ways to do that. It’s a great way to just get out your message and either tell people what you’re doing or what you’re thinking. Maybe you’ve read a new story or you just heard something and you want to talk about it. That’s really the place to do that.And you have two other options there across that screen. Excuse me, just to the right of status is going to be photo and then just to the right of that is checking in. So photo is essentially the same process as what we just discussed. The only difference being you’re not then doing a status update and adding a

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photo, you’re simply posting up. Okay, so it’s still loading your camera roll or you’re uploading a video whichever the case may be.

Checking in is merely if I click on that it’s essentially going to give me an option to tell people where I am; if I’m at the airport, again if I’m at Starbucks, if I’m at the library whatever the case maybe. It’s going to give me the option to denote that.

Okay. The one important piece to know about the status updates in particular; visually you have an option within those once you have posted that to edit that. There is a little drop-down menu to the right hand side that would give you the option to edit it and make some other changes. And I say visually in part because what we’re dealing within the current version editing process. So right now I would just encourage to keep watching for that. It’s inconsistent at best with regard to your ability to edit.

However, if it’s working for you I can walk you through the process. Essentially what you would do is you would open a status that you have posted and in particular if it’s one that someone has commented on. You can do a single finger double tap, which will then give you the option to edit that status or make changes.

Now the caveat there is that’s very inconsistent at this point. Some people are getting that to work, other

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people aren’t. I’m hopeful that Facebook will make a change to that as we move forward with the next update however new confirmation of that.

Okay, as we move through the rest of the app, I want to give you an overview of kind of what it is that you’re seeing and how to interact with those things. Okay, so if we keep swiping down the page we’re currently at check-in. If we keep swiping down we’re actually going to go down into what’s considered our newsfeed. If you’re familiar with Twitter for instance, Twitter gives you a newsfeed of kind of everything that’s going on all at once.

Facebook does the same thing. So essentially as your friends post information that you’re following you will see those posts and it will update and show you that information whether that’s verbal post, whether that’s pictures, etc. And I can demonstrate that for you here.

So as an example – Okay, so in this case a friend of mine posted a photo of one of her kids by choosing to two finger double tap I then get an option to interact with that story. So it gives me an option to interact. It says, “Choose an action.” So if I swipe down I can like, so essentially that you’re giving it a thumbs up. I can make a comment where essentially I’ll be posting a comment based on that picture. I can share it. That’s particularly useful if say it’s a new story or you know it’s something going on in your area or a picture

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that you really like or things of that nature. You can share it based on your own posts.

And then More is the next option. I can hide the post if it’s something that I just don’t care to see. I can unfollow the individual. I can report the post if it’s something that’s offensive or something that’s problematic. I can save it for later. That’s a great option now that they’ve added for things like recipes or news stories or website links, maybe advertisements, things of that nature. And I can also turn on notifications for that post. So if it’s a particular post that I want to follow I can create notifications based on that individual post.

For the purposes of our demonstration today I’ve gotten out of that context menu now. And if I continue to swipe down the page what I’m going to get is basically a continued variation on my newsfeed that’s going to give me updates based on who has posted what and give me the latest information for my particular newsfeed in the individuals that I’m following.

So what we’re going to do now is we’re actually going to talk about the next stages of the elements that you can interact with. So I’ll give you an overview of what those are. At the very bottom of your Facebook app you have a couple of buttons and the easiest way truthfully to navigate those rather than using some

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complicated gesture is just know that these buttons are on the bottom portion of your screen.

So as an example if you’re holding the phone in your hand if you hit it with your thumb, just above and to the left of where your home screen is you’re going to get your newsfeed. That’s at standard default. If I swipe to the right I get requests. If I double tap on that what I’m going to get is a list of the people who have requested to by my friend, and I’ll demonstrate that in just a moment. And then below that list the people who have made requests is going to be a list of people that Facebook figures that I might know based on either acquaintances or similarities in our accounts.

So if I double tap on that – Okay, so I’m hitting this friend request and if I swipe over I can add. So I’ve actually gone through and done my friend request at this point. However, if I keep swiping down the page what I’m going to get is a list of people that I may know. So people I may know. From here I can either add a friend or I can remove them from the people-you-may-know list.

And then again, as those updates happen, as people add me or I add them or if I show up and there are people you may know, you know, they can choose to add me based on that. If it’s someone who is in your request list, you’re going to get the same message. You can either add them or you can decline a

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request. It gives you the option to typically it’s more to this confirm at this point.

Next on the list is messenger. So we’re still at the bottom. If we swipe to the right we’ll get messenger. Now the one thing you know about messenger, at one time it built in a component of the Facebook app. And now you will typically get messages to let you know that you have maybe been sent a message, but the messenger function itself actually serves as a separate app.

Very straightforward. It’s essentially just a chat option between you and another individual or a group of individuals, but it’s essentially your area for private conversation or let’s say you just want to share a story or an attachment or something like that with someone. That’s a good place to do it if you don’t want it to show up on each other’s feeds.

Which may or may not be a privacy thing. Sometimes it’s just a consideration. So the messenger app, I’m not going to get into the separate app itself only because that’s kind of would be a long process of its own of best ways to use that. But just know that it is a separate app. It is very straightforward with regard to creating a conversation and then typing the message. It works the same as doing your status updates.

Okay, if I swipe once more I get notifications. And this is where I’m going to get notifications about if

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someone has added me, if someone has commented on a picture, if someone has commented on a status, all of those kinds of things. So if you heard that – you heard that it said, “Two new,” so another – I have two new notifications that I haven’t seen yet.

Really that’s just a way to know if someone is commenting on your information or if they’re liking a picture, all of those kinds of things. From there if I open that, okay that’s going to jump me back to the search box but then if I swipe down, okay it’s going to give me an indication of who likes my post and how long ago that happened. As I keep going down I get other things, so it will tell me if someone has commented on a picture, tell me if they’ve commented on a status etc. So really that’s just your quick reference way to know if someone is interacting with you is your notifications.

Okay. If we jump back down to the bottom of the page a couple of other things we want to talk about briefly, the last element there on the bottom of the page on the far right is called More. And if I double tap on More, again it’s automatically going to jump me back to the search box, but if I swipe down it’s going to give me options for more.

So within those options I’m going to get a list of things. So once you’ve gotten past the initial heading and it gives you your name you’re going to get a list

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that says, “Friends,” then “Events, Groups, Instagram and Save.”

Okay. So save for instance is a great place to jump back to the items that you’ve chosen to save. In my case it tends to be new stories or recipes that people post, sometimes in photos, things like that. And it’s typically the option for save is that so it’s something you can view later. It’s not only it’s just that, “I want that for a lifetime,” but so much as you know I want to be able to read that later.

Okay, I’m going to briefly jump back to one element or two elements, I’m sorry. So the first is Friends. So Friends is our quick reference way to get to your list of friends. If I open that it will give you a list of all of my friends. Okay, the next item is Events. Within that people have the option of either creating events or inviting you to events based on how an event was created. So as an example a standing meeting that I have every couple of weeks, we’ve gone through and we have created Facebook event, so we know from an attendance perspective who to expect at the meeting.

If I were to want to go and then create an event, that’s the place where I can do that. Again, it’s much like creating a status update. The difference is you get to choose the date, the time, you know give some additional information about that event. You can then add friends or you can open that event to other

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people. So that is one of the good uses behind the events function.

Groups is the next option there. And within groups I can join groups based on my interest or I can leave groups if you are a part of groups and you see that it’s just not what you’re interested in or, you know, maybe things have gone a different direction and you intended that’s the place where you can either join or leave groups, search for those groups, etc.

And the thing with groups to keep in mind is that some of those groups are closed, so may have to either be invited or you may have to ask to join. So keep that in mind as you’re going through this process. Okay, below Saved is an action for See More. Within that you get a list of things, a large number of them, one of which is pages. So as an example you like a particular page, you know, maybe a business or celebrity page or something like that, it can actually show up on your pages for that perspective as well.

A couple of other fun options for those that are into kind of tracking and being really up-to-date on where your friends are or what you’re around at the bottom of that list, you’re going to see nearby friends and then lastly nearby places.

And either of those are – Again, if you have location services turned on you’re going to be able to find out

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if your friends have the setting turned on as well it will determine who is close to you, maybe you’re having lunch somewhere and turns out you have some friends that are three or four blocks away, you meet up with them and decided to do lunch together. The same with nearby place I could do a search and figure out what it is that’s nearby my current location.

Okay, at this point I’d like to pause for a few minutes and answer any questions that anyone has about kind of the basics behind what we’ve talked about this far, whether that’s creating a post or, you know, privacy considerations, making changes, groups, things like that. So I’ll just open things up for any questions that anyone has at this point.

JohnIt’s John in Nova Scotia, Canada. I’m wondering does that operate the same way on the m.facebook.com site? I use that site a lot because it’s the easiest and most accessible for me instead of the regular Facebook site. And I’m not an iOS device user.

Ian ShadrickHey, John. The basic principles are the same. The biggest difference is that you and I we’d still be using headers and links potentially to navigate and/or you know, if you are using a device later you could still use the m.facebook as opposed to the app and simply be swiping through to navigate as well. So it’s really

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just in terms of how you are choosing to navigate, but the overall functions are definitely the same. Again, using a screen reader the biggest difference is your links and headers.

JohnWhat I do, I put F7 to list my links and I hit key enter create a page or chat and as soon as I hit chat I hit enter and then just go down my list like that.

Ian ShadrickAbsolutely. That’s definitely another method to do it. And using those quick options to navigate either link or headers, you know, your F7, F6 options are a same great options for navigation.

JohnThank you very much.

Ian ShadrickDoes anyone else have any questions this far about anything that we’ve talked about?Okay. Now that we have gone through the overall basics behind some of the capabilities behind Facebook and some of your options for things like statuses and checking in, to a friend request, things of that nature, what I’d like to talk about now are some of the more advanced things getting the idea of how you can kind of more effectively use things, as well as some of the overall accessibility and privacy

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considerations. And then lastly some basic uses outside of just your own general or individual use.

So we will talk briefly about some of the initial settings. And for the purposes of this we’re actually still in the more oldest that we’ve been discussing. And below the options for nearby places you’re going to find a couple of things. The first is going to be most recent. If we swipe past that we get an option for add favorites. And then just below that we find settings.

So if we open that we’re going to find account settings, newsfeed preferences and activity log. And if we look first at account settings it actually gets really honestly a platform of options for your settings, but there’s a few things I wanted to talk about. The first is kind of your general settings.

And this is where you can go in and you can actually make edits to things like your name, your e-mail, your phone number, you can upload contacts, you can change your password, your really true basic account settings. As an example, a lot of times when women get married they want to know how to either hyphenate their name or put their maiden name in parentheses and maybe put in their married name. This is the place where you can do that. Rather than simply having to find some roundabout a way to do that, account settings will get you there. If you want to change the e-mail address associated with your

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account you can do the same thing from this location. So that’s in general.

If we go now to the same listing and we go to security – One of the things that people turn to be very cautious about or maybe weary about when they’re first signing up is their security settings, and what that’s going to look like, what people can see, all of those kinds of elements behind Facebook. This is really the initial place where you can make some of those modifications and changes in addition to making sure that when you’re doing status updates that you’re doing them from a perspective that it’s going to the individuals that you want it to go to, so being mindful of that as you’re making those status updates.

Okay, if we look first at security settings the first thing in the list you’re going to find is login alerts. So that’s going to alert you when anyone logs in to your account from a new device or browser. Now realistically that should be you making that login, but again maybe it’s a business account or maybe you’ve done something to ask someone to go in and make a change for you. You’re still going to get an alert if you choose to turn that on to let you know that it’s been logged in from a new device, whether that’s a computer or whether that’s a mobile device.

Okay, login approvals it the next option. You can turn that on or off so that you have to approve the logins.

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Again, if you’re wanting to increase your security you can turn that feature on. Third party authenticator, that is next on the list. If it’s something where they wanted you to trust a site to go to at their party site, we can turn that feature on. Trusted contacts will be next. So you can setup a trusted contacts and if ever you have trouble logging into your account it’s someone that can help you do that realistically with the forgotten password options you may not need that option, but it is there.

Then you get options for things like password recognizing the device, active sessions etc. In that sense what it’s going to do is it’s going to tell you as an example – recognized devices or it tells me how many devices are recognized for my account.

One of the newer features is towards the bottom here. And it’s called a Legacy Contact. That individual can actually make changes to your account if something were to ever happen to you. That’s one of Facebook’s new pushes is to try and get people to setup legacy accounts. And then lastly, you can actually go in and you can – the last option there is to actually deactivate your account. So if you chose to do that this is where you can do that.

Okay, next in that list below security is privacy. And if we open that you’re going to see some of your options for things like who can see your posts. And currently my setup for friends – you have options

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there where you can set it up for everyone, friends, only trusted individuals, etc. Really it’s about making the choice that’s best for you. Just know that if you set it up for instance where everyone can see it that is then searchable by search engines. Additionally if you set it up for friends it could be something where maybe they’re sharing your picture or post. So just be mindful of those things as you’re moving through and creating those status updates and things.

Okay, and you can limit the audience for friends, for instance of things that you’ve already posted. So you can go ahead and make edits to that. Who can contact me, again you can decide how that gets done. Who can send you a friend request, you can choose only those that I know, anyone, etc. Again, just be mindful of your own settings. Whose messages do you want to filter to your inbox? In other words you can select – If I get messages from a new addition or someone wanting to add me, I can make those changes. If it’s only for my friends, if it’s only from a select group of people I can make changes to those settings.

Who can look me up? This is an important one for considerations. Let’s say you have some post up here that maybe, you know, wouldn’t necessarily want everyone to see and you’re looking for a new job or things of that nature, you know, it’s important to be mindful of those things as you’re moving through and you’re considering your own activity and your privacy

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and things, because people can go out and search these.

So currently for me I have it set so that if you know my e-mail that I used and you want to do a search for me based on that, you can find – that’s my own personal choice, partly because I’m not using work e-mail or something of that nature where it’s quite as easy to find me, but at the same time I’m not making myself hidden either.

Okay, who can look you up using the phone number you provided? Personally for me I don’t have it associated with my phone or my phone number I should say, so you know that’s a different setting. Do you want other search engines to link to your timelines? So you can change whether you want that to be yes or no. Now in some instances if you're running it for a promotional setting or you’re trying to get your name out there that’s a good thing to turn on. If you don’t want that to be the case it might be something you want to turn off.

Okay. If we go back to that general list, timeline and tagging is next. Essentially within that option you’re going to be able to setup who can tag you or whether you want tags for instance. Most importantly if you want tags to have to be approved by you. So an example if someone post a picture and they’ve tagged you, if you want that to have to be approved by you before it shows up on your timeline so others can see

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you and your activity then that’s a place where you can make that change.

It might be something I would recommend if you’re wanting to be a little bit mindful of especially pictures that may get out there. Next is location. Location, just know that if you have location services turned on and you post a picture for instance it is going to post the basic idea behind your location. It’s not always exact, but it will definitely give a pretty good location features for that, so we might pull that.

You then have options for photos and videos, sounds. You can go a little bit further down and you find the option for blocking. So if you have someone who is being problematic you can go in and you can actually block them. Notifications, you can setup how those notification are sent to you and how it is that you receive them. You have options for text messaging. Next is followers.

So within this list that you can see you’re going to find a plethora of options. We’re not going to go through all of those, just based on time today. What these do could be a good indication of some of the overall changes and privacy settings, overall indications of things you can do within your overall settings. So that was discussing some of the overall settings both account and privacy, as well as just notification settings, how you’re receiving your information, some of those kinds of things.

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I wanted to talk briefly about a couple of other elements. The first of those if you click on settings, again you’re going to find out option for newsfeed preferences. So just below account settings is newsfeed preferences. Okay. You can prioritize who you see first, you can unfollow people, you can reconnect with people that you’ve unfollowed, or you can discover pages that measure interest. So this is kind of a good way to do all of those things.

So prioritize what you see first. So if there’s someone that you want to have their information pop-up first every day you can set it up that way. Unfollow people that you just – you know, maybe you still want to be friends with them but you just don’t care to see the majority of their posts. You can do it vice versa, where you can reconnect. And lastly you can discover pages that match your interest.

Okay. Just some good options for kind of how your overall newsfeed shows up to you and how you want to be able to navigate your own information effectively. Okay, so if we go back to settings real quick, the last thing I want to show you there is activity log. And what you get there is information about your most recent activity and you can filter through that to see what information that’s been posted there, you know, in the most chronological order. So it’s just a nice place if you want to try and keep track of that, especially if you’re using it for

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some type of promotional purpose or you need to track that for any reason.

Okay. And the last element that I really like to talk briefly about below settings here is privacy shortcuts. And with privacy shortcuts, it’s just a quick way to get to a few of those ones that we’ve talked about in the start. So this adjustable settings is a link for privacy settings, or I’m sorry, privacy shortcuts. And if we open that, that’s where you’re going to get a quick link to things like who can see my stuff, who can contact me and how do I keep someone from bothering me.

Okay. You get options for privacy basics and more settings. Really, and that’s going to want you back into kind of your more advanced privacy settings, but this is just a quick spot if you don’t want to go through all of those prior options under privacy, these are just a few quick ways if you want to change maybe who is seeing your post or who is contacting you, kind of two of the more typical areas. That’s why they’ve kind of drawn these out has their own settings.So we’ll go back. And the last part of that page is help and support. And then the very last link there is a logout link. Okay, so if you’re choosing to logout every time on your individual device, which again is really your preference it is an option to do that there.

Okay, lastly I’d like to take just a couple of minutes to talk about some of the overall accessibility, some of the things that Facebook is doing, things they’re

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working on, some overall considerations for other screen readers, things of that nature. And then talk briefly about some of the overall uses of site of individual use.

So Facebook does have a team that’s dedicated to working on accessibility issues. They’re doing some really pretty interesting things. Several of you may have seen some of the recent stories that they’re putting out with regard to pictures and videos and that recent update that they’re doing.

Essentially, what they’re going to be doing is using artificial intelligence to as you have a picture on your timeline for instance, essentially give a brief description or a brief maybe a word or two about whether the image or video give you some basic information about that image that’s on the screen. That’s not something that’s currently available in its current iteration, but it is something they’re working on. A whole team is working on that individual project.

It will be really interesting to see how that plays out and see how effective that turns out to be for screen reader users. It is intended as a screen-reader specific option with regard to you know working towards this audience. It’s really nice to see them doing that.

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The caveat to that as we talked about in the very beginning, it’s important to know that as changes are made to the overall app or website of Facebook that some of those changes do affect navigation and some of the options there. So just keep that in mind as you go.

Regarding the use of our other screen readers, again I know we’ve talked primarily about the use of VoiceOver, at this point for demonstration purposes – However, the biggest difference a maker using say JAWS or NVDA, Window Eyes, you know all those and they’re using the website, is make sure that you’re familiar with how to navigate using your links and headers. Understand how to activate those things. Those are really going to be the keys to your navigation for the website version of Facebook and just knowing how to jump from point A to point B to get to where you want to be.

The overall accessibility is definitely there, it’s just a difference in making the quick steps to get to your swiping versus using some of your ways in headers, which is not so you can’t do some similar things with VoiceOver. You can, but most typically folks are going to be using swiping just for ease and efficiency.

Okay, and then lastly I just wanted to briefly touch on some of the other uses. A couple of which we talked about, we talked briefly about events that can be used, that could be anything from personal events to

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whether that’s a fundraiser or, you know, some type of community event, any of those kinds of things.

So make sure that you’re checking that out and make sure it’s something that you consider if you want to put a group together, you know, those kinds of things. Groups are another one in particular where, again it could be based on a particular interest, could be a hobby, could be a professional group, whatever the case may be, it gives you the option to do that.

Now there’s several blindness or disability-specific related groups out there. You can do searches for those. If it’s something that interest you, you might consider joining those. And then lastly, you know, if you are a small business owner, I would highly encourage you to look at Facebook for marketing your individual business for considering things like sales or promotions, fund raisers, you know, whatever you have going on within your business using social media, whether it’s Facebook or Twitter or both, or a number of other options. It’s only going to increase your traffic for your business, so just keep that in mind.

And then lastly, if today has really kind of what your appetite but you’re still a little bit leery about jumping into the process we just like to encourage you to take a look at our social media course that we have here at Hadley. It’s a foundational course in using the three primary social media, so using Facebook, Twitter and

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LinkedIn. So it’s strategies for connecting with social media. Please consider taking a look at that course and consider signing up if it’s something that interest you. At this point I will open things up for any further questions.

CallerHow is it that you post to another person’s wall? I found somebody I want to post off and I get there and then I have a hard time finding where I need to enter my request and post it. So it always seems like it end up with something else there. Is there an easy way to find where to post to?

Ian ShadrickThat’s actually changed recently. The easiest way tends to be if you were to either see someone that you wanted to post to, say – and we’re assuming original message at this point. If you see them in their newsfeed you can click on their name and it will take you to their newsfeed. Or conversely if you go up to the search bar which tends to be the fastest way, you can then go up to the search bar, type in their name and when you land on their page below all of their information, you’re going to have to scroll down a couple of elements, but you’ll find a box that says, “Write something,” and that’s where you’ll actually going to be able to type your original message. You get the same options in that write something as though you were doing a status update, it’s just that you’re posting directly to their wall.

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CallerI came in a few minutes late. I wonder if you discussed how to categorize friends, such as family, friends or acquaintances.

Ian Shadrick We didn’t at this point, for the purposes of today’s discussion. But essentially you have options for when you click on – if you were to click on your friends list you actually get an option to categorize them within that setting. And that’s actually something if you want to know more about – if you want to contact me off the list I could maybe give you a quick run through, kind of a step-by-step on how to do that.

CallerOkay. Thank you.

CallerI have another question. Sometimes I notice on my newsfeed that when I single finger double tap something I can’t go into it, or other times I can. Usually I’d like all double tap at going to like something, but sometimes somebody else has started the conversation with somebody and it’s like something that I try to blend to that and it won’t let me, and it’s not consistent. I haven’t figured out why. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can’t.

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Ian Shadrick I haven’t personally seen that with just interacting with a story. I can tell you that that same setting is supposed to be what will also bring up some of those editing options, but that is currently inconsistent with this most recent update. I know the update literally a week and a half, two weeks ago was not doing that. Sounds as though that’s the same feature that I was discussing that I said, “Hopefully, they’ll be fixing for the editing component.” Again, that’s a function of the edit, so hopefully they’ll be fixing that inconsistency.

CallerI guess I’ll keep asking, because nobody else is asking. Is there a way to separate like family versus business type things? It seems to me you’re not allowed to setup a separate account. So Facebook you can only have one account, but I personally like to keep things separated. Is there a way to do that?

Ian Shadrick You can absolutely setup separate accounts strictly based on your e-mail that you’re using or your mobile phone number in either case. And then in addition to that how you’re displaying your name might be something you want to consider in terms of how you’re setting it up, so as an example if you’re setting something up under a business name.

Another thing that happens I know quite a bit, several podcasters that I know that I was into for instance will

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have, you know, a personal page and then they’ll have their professional page. The same is true I think with a lot of celebrities. They’ll have a page that’s a fan page, so to speak, that’s maybe run by a publicist or an agency, you know, PR form, that kind of thing, but then they have their own personal page.The same can be done and let’s say for instance if you have a small business and you want to run a page for that versus your personal page. So it’s really just a matter of making sure that you’re creating the distinction when you’re setting things up and what you are posting. Additionally, you would probably want to consider setting it up with two separate e-mails or at least e-mail and a mobile phone just for your own clarity.

Ed HainesWell folks, I’m not seeing any other questions. Thanks so much Ian. That was a lot of terrific information. We are near the end of the session. This seminar recording and additional handout resources will be archived on the low vision focus website at www.lowvisionfocus.org, as well as the Hadley website www.hadley.edu. And the recordings and research documents for every seminar are available 24/7.

Each of our popular seminars at Hadley is now available as a podcast, which you can download and listen to on your computer or mobile device. And for

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those of you on Twitter Hadley’s Twitter hashtag is #seminarsathadley.

Thanks to everyone for participating today. Again, and as I mentioned earlier we really do value your feedback, so please let us know what you thought of this seminar and we’d love to hear suggestions for future seminar topics by sending an e-mail to feedback@hadley.edu. I’m now just going to hand the microphone back to Ian for a final farewell.

Ian ShadrickThanks, Ed. And I just want to thank everyone for participating today. Again, thanks for taking your time to be a part of today’s seminar and for asking some really good questions. We appreciate your participation. Again, if you’re further interested in the topic feel free to e-mail me or feel free to enroll in our social media course. So thank you very much.

CallerCould you give me the offline contact information?

Ian ShadrickSure. It’s just my name. So Ian Shadrick, so that’s I-A-N-S-H-A-D-R-I-C-K@hadley.edu.

CallerThank you.

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JohnThank you very much Ian. It’s John in Nova Scotia, Canada. I really enjoyed the seminar today.

Ed HainesAll right, folks. Thank you so much. And again Ian thanks a whole lot. Thanks to everyone.

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