Creating a Post

Hi, my name is Vikki Vaughan, and today we'll dive into various ways we can share information on Facebook. We'll do this by creating a post. We'll learn how to share information by adding text, a background, and a photo to our post.

This series is designed for people who use a screen reader. If you're not a screen reader user, be sure to check out Hadley's low vision 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, feelings and activity emojis. Facebook also allows us to control who sees our post.

Our post shows up near the top of our newsfeed and on our friends' newsfeed. From there, our friends can react to it in many different ways. We talk about reacting to a post in another workshop in this series. Let's walk through the steps for creating a post. Let's start out on our homepage.

Screen Reader: Banner landmark visited link, Facebook.

Vikki: We'll press control plus home to make sure we're all starting from the top of our page.

Screen Reader: Banner landmark visited link, Facebook.

Vikki: As we learned in another workshop in this series, the publisher Edit field is the place where we start a post. Let's go there with our heading shortcut H. We'll press H three times to move to our home button.

Screen Reader: Navigation. Landmark Facebook menu. Heading level two, your shortcuts heading, level three. Home heading level one.

Vikki: And we'll press H again to move to our stories.

Screen Reader: Main landmark stories, region stories heading level three.

Vikki: Then we'll press H once again to move to the region where we create our post.

Screen Reader: Create a post region. Create a post heading level three.

Vikki: Now let's Tab to our account button.

Screen Reader: Vikki Hadley's timeline visited link.

Vikki: And with our next Tab, we hear our screen reader ask, what's on your mind and then our name.

Screen Reader: What's on your mind, Vikki button.

Vikki: Let's press the Spacebar to select this button.

Screen Reader: Create post dialogue.

Vikki: We've opened a new window. Our cursor is in an Edit field and we're ready to type a comment. Now, before we do that, let's talk a little about selecting our audience for this post. We'll press Shift plus Tab to move back to the privacy button.

Screen Reader: Edit privacy, sharing with your friends.

Vikki: We'll press the Spacebar. This opens a new window.

Screen Reader: Select audience grouping.

Vikki: We have several different options here. We can set our privacy settings so everyone can see our post. Our only friends can see it as well as a few other options. If we wish, we can make it visible only to us. We move through our menu with our arrow keys. Once we've landed on our desired option, we Tab to our done button.

Screen Reader: Cancel button, done button.

Vikki: We then press the Spacebar to activate the done button and close this menu.

Screen Reader: Edit privacy, sharing with your friends button.

Vikki: Now let's Tab back to our Edit field.

Screen Reader: What's on your mind, Vikki? Edit multi-line blank.

Vikki: Spring has been on my mind lately, so let's type Spring is on its way.

Screen Reader: S P R I N G space I S space O N space I T S space W A Y bang.

Vikki: Next, let's explore some of the ways we can make our post more exciting. One popular way is to add a background to our text. Let's Tab to the background options button.

Screen Reader: Show background options button.

Vikki: And we'll press the Spacebar to select it.

Screen Reader: Hide background options.

Vikki: We then Tab between the various background options. There are eight choices to choose from in this window. We can also Tab to the more options to choose from a larger selection of backgrounds. For now, we'll Tab several times to the pink heart background.

Screen Reader: No background button, black illustration. Black illustration. Black illustration. Solid red, solid red, solid blue, pink heart pattern on pink background, background image toggle button not pressed

Vikki: And press the Spacebar to select it.

Screen Reader: Edit multi-line Spring is on its way.

Vikki: We're back in our Edit field and it has a lovely background with a pink heart pattern. You know this heart's background has lots of visual clutter. How about we remove it to make our post easier to see? Unfortunately, our post can't have both a background and a picture or video. Let's press our Tab key and move back to our background options button.

Screen Reader: Hide background options button.

Vikki: We'll Tab once to the first option, no background.

Screen Reader: No background button.

Vikki: Let's press the Spacebar to select it.

Screen Reader: What's on your mind, Vikki? Edit multi-line Spring is on its way.

Vikki: Let's press Tab to move back to our background options button.

Screen Reader: Hide background options button.

Vikki: We heard our screen readers say hide background options. Let's do that by pressing our Spacebar.

Screen Reader: Show background options.

Vikki: Now let's add something fun to our post. How about an emoji? Emojis are small drawings or graphics that express an emotion. A good example is a smiling face. We'll press Tab and move to the emojis button.

Screen Reader: Emoji button.

Vikki: Let's press the Spacebar to open our emojis window.

Screen Reader: Dialogue emoji picker table, emoji picker table with smileys and people grouping. Row one, column one, grinning face graphic button.

Vikki: Here we have a group of emojis to choose from. They include smiling faces, animals, activities, and more. We Tab between the various categories then use our arrow keys to move to our desired graphic. For today's purposes, we'll choose one of the smiling faces to add to the text in our post. Let's press our Tab key to move to the smileys grouping.

Screen Reader: Smileys and people button.

Vikki: Then we'll press our Spacebar to select it.

Screen Reader: Emoji picker table with 60 rows and eight column smileys and people grouping. Row one, column one.

Vikki: Now let's use our arrow to move between our smiley options. Let's press our down arrow.

Screen Reader: Grinning face graphic button.

Vikki: Okay, let's select a grinning face with big eyes. We'll press our Spacebar to select it.

Screen Reader: Column two, button graphic, grinning face with big eyes.

Vikki: We're back in our Edit field and our grinning face has been placed in our post. Let's Tab a couple of times to move back to our emojis button and close that window. We'll press Tab.

Screen Reader: Show background options button.

Vikki: And we'll press Tab again to move to the emojis button.

Screen Reader: Emoji button.

Vikki: Now let's press the Spacebar to select and close this window. Now we'll move to some other options for making our post more exciting. Let's Tab to our next region, Add to your post.

Screen Reader: Add to your post button.

Vikki: We'll Tab again to the photo slash video button.

Screen Reader: Photo slash video button.

Vikki: Let's press space once again to select this option.

Screen Reader: Add photos slash videos or drag and drop button.

Vikki: Let's press the Spacebar to select it.

Screen Reader: Open dialogue, file name. Items, view list, Hadley logo not selected, row one, column one, one of five.

Vikki: We've landed in our picture folder or wherever we saved our desired picture. Let's press Shift plus Tab to move to our items view list.

Screen Reader: Items view list.

Vikki: I happen to have a picture of spring flowers in my picture folder. Let's press S for Spring and see if we land on the desired picture.

Screen Reader: S, Spring flowers, row two, column one, five of five.

Vikki: That's the picture we're looking for. Let's press the Spacebar to select it.

Screen Reader: Space.

Vikki: Then we'll press our Enter key to place this photo in our post and close this window.

Screen Reader: Three, Facebook, Google, Chrome. Create post dialogue, attached media grouping button, Edit. Edit button.

Vikki: 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 picture folder so we'll need to be sure of their location when it's time to retrieve them to place in our post. When posting a photo, it's a great idea to add alt text to our picture. Alternative text or alt text for short, provides a detailed description of what's in the photo for our friends who use a screen reading program. Let's check it out. We'll press the Spacebar to select the Edit button.

Screen Reader: Crop button.

Vikki: Let's Tab through our choices until we reach Alternative text.

Screen Reader: Rotate button. Tag photo button. Text tool button, alternative text button.

Vikki: Now let's press the Spacebar to open alternative text. Then we'll Tab to our first choice.

Screen Reader: Maybe a closeup of flower and nature radio button. Checked one of two.

Vikki: Well, that's technically correct but let's expand the description for our screen reading friends. We'll Tab to the Edit field.

Screen Reader: Custom alt text, Edit, multi-line blank.

Vikki: And type yellow daffodils in sunshine.

Screen Reader: Y E L L O W space, D A F F O D I L S, space I N space S U N S H I N E.

Vikki: We'll then Tab twice to the Save button.

Screen Reader: Custom field for alternate text radio button, check two of two, Save button.

Vikki: And press the Spacebar to select it.

Screen Reader: Create post dialogue. Heading level to create post. Attached media grouping Edit button.

Vikki: There are lots of other tools we can use to enhance our post. For time's sake, we won't cover them all in this workshop. If you'd like to learn more, be sure to check out the resources below this workshop. There you can learn about tagging people, adding emoticons that help express our feelings or our activities. Checking in to let others know you're safe and adding a life event. Let's Tab through those options.

Screen Reader: Add to your post, photo slash video button, tag people button feeling slash activity button, check in button, life event button, this can't be combined with what you've already added to your post, more button.

Vikki: We're almost ready to publish our post. Let's Tab to the Post button.

Screen Reader: Post button.

Vikki: And we'll press the Spacebar to select it.

Screen Reader: Button new message. Alert, your post is successfully shared with friends.

Vikki: Congratulations, you've just posted your first Facebook post. Today we talked all about posting on Facebook and we explored some of the tools that help make our post fun. I'm Vikki Vaughan, and I thank you for joining me.