Creating a Post

Hi, my name is Vikki Vaughan, and today we'll dive into various ways we can share information on Facebook. This includes post about how we're feeling, what we're doing, and our current location. We'll also learn about adding text, photos, and videos to our post.

This series is designed for people with low vision. If you use a screen reader, be sure to check out Hadley's screen reading version of this series.

Much of the fun with Facebook is the back and forth conversations with our Facebook friends. We start the conversation by creating a post. When we create a post, we can customize it with various backgrounds, photos, videos, and feeling and activity emojis. Facebook also allows us to control who sees our post. Our posts show up at the top of our newsfeed and on the newsfeed of friends. From there, our friends can react to it in many different ways, we'll talk about reacting to a post in another workshop in this series.

Let's walk through the steps for creating a post, as we learned in another workshop in this series, the publisher edit field is at the top of our newsfeed. When we place our cursor in the field where it says, what's on your mind and then your name, we select it to open a new window. Our cursor is in the edit field and we are ready to type a comment, let's try it now. We'll click in the publisher edit field, then type, I'm feeling great today.

Below our text, in the left corner, we find a rainbow-colored button with the letter A. When we select it with our mouse pointer, it opens a ribbon or strip containing buttons of various background images from which we can select.

To the far right of the ribbon, we find a button with four squares. When we select it with our pointer, a window opens with loads of different backgrounds to choose from. We can scroll through the choices by clicking and dragging our scroll bar located on the right side of the window. When we find one that matches our mood, we select it with our mouse pointer. We then close the background ribbon by selecting the left caret button to the far left. It's helpful to know that if we wish to post a photo or video, we don't have the option to choose a background. Since I chose a background for demonstration, I'll now select the blank background to return to the original post.

Below our edit field we find a row of buttons with the words add to your post. The first button is a new feature in Facebook, when we select it, our text is read aloud.

VoiceOver: I'm feeling great today.

Vikki: The words and sentences are also highlighted as it reads our post. Now, if you don't have a read aloud button on your Facebook wall, not to worry, Facebook rolls out new features in stages so it's only a matter of time until you'll have this feature too.

Moving to the right our next control is the photo/video button. When we select it with our pointer, a window pops up below our text with the words Add Photos/Video, or drag and drop. Let's select it again in the window above our tools.

File Explorer opens and we choose our photo from our pictures folder or wherever we've saved the photo we wish to share, our picture then appears in the Facebook window. We also find tools that allow us to edit the photo or add more photos. If we change our mind, we can select the X in the top right corner of the photo to delete it from our post.

When posting a photo, it's a great idea to add all text to our picture. Alternative text or alt text for short provides a detailed description of what's in the photo to our friends who use a screen reading program. If you'd like to learn how to add alt text to your photos, be sure to check out the resource section below this video.

When we wish to post a video instead of a photo, we follow the exact same process we did with photos. Our videos might be contained in either our video folder or our pictures folder so we'll need to be sure of their location when it's time to retrieve them for our post.

Moving to the right of the photo/video button, we find our tag people button. When we tag a friend, we create a link to their profile. Let's use our mouse pointer to select this button.

We've opened a window and our cursor is in the search edit field, we type in our friend's name. I'll type my friend Ricky's name, her profile appears in the results below the search field so I'll select it with my pointer, then I'll select the Done button.

We can tag more than one person in a post. When we've tagged everyone we want, we select the Done button. The friend's name appears along with our name at the top of our post, it reads, our name is with, friend's name. When we tag a friend, our post will be added to that friend's timeline. A good example is a group photo, when we tag all the individuals in the photo, each one will be notified in the notification area of their homepage. Anyone who sees our posts can click on our friend's name and go to their profile.

To the right of the tag button, we find the feelings activity button, let's select it with our pointer. It opens a new window with two headings; the first heading is Feelings, it is selected by default.

Below the heading, we find two columns of terms that describe feelings such as happy, excited, and crazy. When we find a description that fits, we select it with our mouse pointer, let's select happy.

The other heading is Activities. When selected, it shows us a list of terms that describe various activities such as celebrating, watching, eating. When we select either a feeling or an activity, we automatically return to our posting and the feeling or activity is included in our status next to our name.

For example, when we choose happy, under Feelings, our status reads, our name is feeling happy with our friend's name. There's also a smiling face icon between the words is and feeling.

Moving to our right, again, we find the check-in button, let's let our friends know where we are. Some people use this tool after a natural disaster to quickly inform their Facebook friends of their location and status.

When we select it with our mouse pointer, we open a new window and our cursor is in a search edit field, here we search for a location. We can search for a city, a business, a park, or many other options. When we select our location, much like our feelings button, it closes this window and we're back in our post. The location is now included in our status such as our name, is feeling happy with, our friend's name, in Winnetka, Illinois. If we don't have a picture or video posted, a map of our location will appear below the status. Keep in mind that a post can include as much or as little of these extras as we'd like, it's really a matter of individual taste.

Our next button is Life event. When we select it, a new window opens and we can select from a category such as work, education, relationship, and family. Let's select family to explore our options. Here, we can post about a new child, parenthood, a new pet, or the loss of a loved one, let's select new pet and then introduce our cat, Rocky. When we've typed in the details of our life event, we select the Done button.

An illustration of our life event appears in our post, we can also select the Edit button to add a photo of our new pet. To the right of the Life events button, we find three dots. This tells us there is more to explore. I encourage you to check out the other options you can add to your post. Whenever you're finished adding to your post, select the back arrow to return to the final steps.

Okay, we're almost ready to post, now it's time to select our audience. At the top of our post, below our name and status, we find a dropdown box. When we select it with our pointer, a post audience window pops up. We have various options, some of which include public, friends, friends except, only me, specific friends, and custom. We click and drag the scroll bar on the right side to move up and down this menu to view all of our choices. We select the radio button to the right of our selection then choose the done button and it takes us back to our post. Once we finished customizing our post, we select the post button at the bottom of the window.

The new pet illustration has now been replaced in our post with an image of a cat paw print. Our friends will then see the post in their newsfeed and often will comment or react to it in some manner.

Today, we talked all about posting on Facebook and we explored some of the tools that help make our post fun. I'm Vicki Vaughan, and I thank you for joining me.