[gui-talk] Looking for instructions for understandingFacebook nonvisually

Tue Jul 21 23:12:36 UTC 2009

Albert,

I've often learned something useful from reading stuff on the AFB site, and 
especially in Access World. I'll go to that Web site and see what I can 
find. What I'm hoping for is a fairly simple explanation of how the system's 
set up and how you use it reasonably well with a screen reader. I don't know 
how active I'll actually become, but I want to at least know my way around 
and enjoy that little extra bit of social connectedness.

So, thanks. I'll take a look soon.
Joel
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "albert griffith" <albertgriffith at sbcglobal.net>
To: "'NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List'" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 2:02 PM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Looking for instructions for understandingFacebook 
nonvisually

I believe there's a searticle about face book on the AFB site in the
Accessible World magazine.  It might be called Access World but it's on the
home page.

-----Original Message-----
From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Joel Deutsch
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 4:24 PM
To: GUI-Talk
Subject: [gui-talk] Looking for instructions for understanding Facebook
nonvisually

I use Jaws 10 and IE 7. I've finally caught up with the times and gave up
enough of my habitual introversion to register on Facebook, but although
I've managed somehow to invite and be invited by a few friends, in general I

can't really understand how the site's functions work or what's going on
when one or the other site pages load in response to my activating this or
that link.

The closest I can come by way of comparison is the main Amazon site, which
took me ages to become a pretty good navigator of, to the point where
choosing to use their simplified and less graphical mobile site is now a
choice, not a dependency, because I know so many screen elements to search
for and skip to and/or single letter Jaws commands to use.

But I can't, at least  right now, imagine getting anywhere near such skill
with Facebook, not just because I can't simply see the layout of the pages,
which sighted friends assure me is a frightful mess even if you're not
dealing with a screen reader. it's because I don't understand most of the
terminology of the site and what the things Jaws speaks to me actually mean.

Just for instance: I guess that commenting is an important way you maintain
a dynamic presence on the site. And with a couple words of helpful
suggestion from a sighted friend who's a little more up on things than I am,

I guess I learned that the word "status" and the updating of one's status
has nothing to do with your health, being coupled or single, and so forth.
it's more like what's up with you at the moment, or as the note on the
screen says, what's on your mind. So you're supposed to do what I read that
they do on twitter? Say I'm eating breakfast now and I just love this
banana! and that's your "status" pronouncement of the moment? Or something a

little more complex and wordy if you prefer, I guess. But that seems to be
the idea. The word "status" doesn't really mean anything, here, not in the
English I speak. But I think I get it, and that's what's important.

Okay. So if I wanted to sort of blog on my part of the site, I'd type and
press Upload Status occasionally.

Then people could comment, like say I hate bananas or sometimes a banana is
just a banana, Ingrid and the next person could just type LOL.

but beneath each comment from someone on my Friends list, I see two links.
The first one says dash comment, which I guess is an invitation to type a
comment to someone else's posting. Okay. I'll try that sometime. But beneath

that, jaws says "dash Like." Now here's another example of ordinary words
whose meaning I obviously don't get on Facebook. if you click on Like, what
happens? have you voted for the comment you just read, for instance? I don't

see a "dislike" link. What else could it mean besides "I like that comment?"

I know this is a dumb, dumb question. but I don't get any of this, and I
have a feeling this is a really essential part of participation.

I wanted to go on to ask what a Wall is, and what writing on it means, but
I'll save that. first I'd like to see if anyone knows anything to begin
with. And sure, if in the Help section of that site, somewhere, there's
actual instruction about what all this means and how to use the site so that

I could stop trying to intuit it navigating with Jaws and hearing all this
repetitious gibberish and ads, someone tell me where to look for education.

Thanks, everybody.
Joel

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