Exploring the Home Page

Hi, my name is Vikki Vaughan, and I'd like to welcome you to this introduction to Facebook. If you're ready to join the nearly three billion people who use Facebook each month, you're in the right place. In this first workshop, we'll explore our Facebook homepage. We'll also talk about the difference between our homepage and our profile page. Finally, we'll examine several ways to move around Facebook.

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.

Now, before we get started, you'll need to create your own Facebook account. You can find directions for creating your account in the resource section below this workshop. It will take you step by step through the setup process.

In this series, we're visiting Facebook in our Chrome browser on a Windows computer. You can also access Facebook through iOS and Android devices, but for this series, we'll be using the Facebook website in Chrome.

If you need a refresher on using Chrome with a screen reader, check out Hadley's Getting Online For Screen Reader series. We'll start off in Chrome and log into our account. Let's type www.facebook.com.

Screen Reader: www.facebook.com

Vikki: And press our Enter key.

Screen Reader: Facebook.

Vikki: We land on our homepage which is also referred to as our wall. You can think of it as Facebook's main page and it's where we spend most of our time. Here, we find posts from friends as well as create our own post. We also find links to other parts of Facebook as well as advertisements and various menus. Coming up, we'll take a more detailed tour of our homepage. Let's move to the top of our homepage by pressing the Control and Home keys together.

Screen Reader: Facebook, clickable complimentary landmark button by name or group, banner landmark visited link Facebook.

Vikki: For now, we'll use our Tab key to move around our homepage and explore different sections. With the first press of our Tab key--

Screen Reader: Banner landmark, search Facebook combo box collapsed has auto-complete editable search Facebook blank.

Vikki: We land in the Search Facebook edit field. This is the Facebook tool where we search for friends and groups. We'll use this tool in another workshop in this series. We'll press Tab again and move to a group of navigational buttons. The first one is the Home button.

Screen Reader: Facebook navigation landmark list with four items, home, visited link current page.

Vikki: No matter where we are on Facebook, when we select the Home button, we're taken to the top of our homepage. It's really handy if we've been scrolling down the page and wish to jump back to the top. Since post are displayed in chronological order, selecting the homepage refreshes the page and displays the most current post at the top. If we're visiting another part of Facebook, the Home button will quickly take us back to our homepage. Let's press our Tab key and move to our next navigation tool Watch.

Screen Reader: Watch link.

Vikki: In the Watch page, we can scroll through various videos. Let's Tab to our next button, the Facebook Marketplace.

Screen Reader: Marketplace link.

Vikki: Here's where we can browse all types of items that are for sale in our area. Let's Tab again and move to our final navigation tool in this section, Groups.

Screen Reader: Groups link.

Vikki: This takes us to our Facebook Groups page. We explore this feature in depth in another workshop in this series. Let's Tab again and move to the next set of navigational controls.

Screen Reader: Account controls and settings, navigation landmark profile graphic button notified.

Vikki: We've moved to our Account button. When we press Enter to activate this button, it opens a dropdown menu which includes access to our profile page.

Screen Reader: Dialogue, your profile dialogue.

Vikki: Our profile page is where we share information about ourselves, such as our interest, photos, and post. Our profile also contains our timeline. The timeline is our chronological history on Facebook. It includes any comments, activities, photos, or videos that we've posted to our wall. We'll learn how to personalize our profile page and create posts in other workshops in this series. We press the Escape key to close this list.

Screen Reader: Button graphic your profile.

Vikki: Let's press Tab again and move to the next button Notifications.

Screen Reader: Notifications link.

Vikki: When we press Enter to activate the Notification button, we open a list of recent posts from Facebook friends and groups that we follow.

Screen Reader: Dialogue, notifications heading level one.

Vikki: Notifications is also one of the places where we see new friend requests and messages. We press the Escape key to close this list.

Screen Reader: Link notifications.

Vikki: Let's Tab to our next button Messenger.

Screen Reader: Messenger button.

Vikki: Messenger is an instant messaging feature that's built into Facebook. It's a great way to send private messages back and forth in real time. Let's Tab to our next button, Menu button.

Screen Reader: Menu button.

Vikki: When we press Enter to activate the Menu button, we open a list of the different activities in Facebook.

Screen Reader: Menu dialogue.

Vikki: The Menu contains a search fill to seek out friends, groups, and events. We can also select from the Menu to create a post, story, or room. Let's close this menu and move back to our homepage with, you guessed it, our Escape key.

Screen Reader: Button menu.

Vikki: Next up, we'll press Tab to move to another listing of Facebook activities. The list contains some of the items we found in other places like Marketplace and Watch. Let's Tab through the first view.

Screen Reader: Navigation landmark list with one items Vikki Hadley visited link.

Vikki: The first item in the list is another way to access our Facebook account. Let's press Tab.

Screen Reader: List with eight items, Find Friends link.

Vikki: This is one of the several methods we can use to search for friends. Join me in another workshop in this series to learn more about how to locate friends on Facebook. Let's press Tab.

Screen Reader: Groups link.

Vikki: Facebook Groups is a great way to connect with others who share similar interest. As I mentioned, we have a whole workshop devoted to this feature, let's Tab.

Screen Reader: Most Recent link.

Vikki: This control refreshes the homepage and displays the most recent post. We'll press Tab to move to our next item.

Screen Reader: Marketplace visited link.

Vikki: Here, we see Marketplace once again. Let's Tab again.

Screen Reader: Watch link.

Vikki: In here, we also find the Watch control. Now, we could move through all the rest of the items by pressing Tab, but let's try a different way to move around our homepage. We'll bypass the next few items and jump ahead by using our headings keyboard shortcut H for hop. Let's press H twice.

Screen Reader: Home heading level one.

Vikki: And we find ourselves back at the Home button. Let's press Tab.

Screen Reader: Main landmark, Tab control, stories Tab selected one of two.

Vikki: Now, we've landed in Stories. These are visual posts such as photos and short videos. They're a great way to share everyday moments with our friends. Stories are intended to be a quick snapshot and they disappear after 24 hours. Once again, let's press our Tab key.

Screen Reader: Reels Tab two of two.

Vikki: Reels are short videos that users create for fun. They can include music, text overlays and effects. We'll press Tab once again.

Screen Reader: Stories region, stories region, Create story link.

Vikki: This is the control that we use to create our story. This is a great place to add our short videos or add photos. Keep in mind, these videos and photos only stay posted for 24 hours. Okay, let's press Tab again.

Screen Reader: Perkins School for the Blind story link.

Vikki: Now, we're moving through stories that friends have posted. Let's press Tab several times to pass through our friend's stories.

Screen Reader: Molly, Bookshare, create a post region, Vikki Had--

Vikki: Now, we've landed in the region of our homepage called the publisher. It contains an edit fill with a question, "What's on your mind?" And then it says your name. This is where we start a conversation with our Facebook friends. These conversations are called post. When we create a post, it's added to our timeline. We've devoted an entire workshop to creating a post. For now, let's skip the details of our post and move to our next heading. We'll press H.

Screen Reader: News Feed posts heading level three.

Vikki: Now, we've landed in our News Feed. This is where many of us head first when we visit Facebook. Whenever we post something like a status update or a photo, it shows up in our News Feed. It also shows us post from friends as well as any posts that we've liked in the recent past. Sometimes we also see posts from people who aren't our friends or from pages that we haven't liked. This usually happens because our Facebook friends liked or commented on these posts. The more we interact with friends on Facebook such as liking their post, the higher up on our News Feed their post will be. Likewise, the more popular something is on Facebook in general, the higher up on our News Feed it will be placed. A post with many comments and likes, for example, will higher than one with few comments or likes. We'll learn all about likes in another workshop in this series. Let's press H once again to move to the next heading.

Screen Reader: Assistive Technology Support Group For Blind And Low Vision link heading level four.

Vikki: Now, we've moved to the first post in our News Feed. We'll press our down arrow repeatedly to move through the various links and read the contents of the post.

Screen Reader: Link Carrie Morales Link. It's been posted for . Graphic shared with public group. Menu button collapsed. Link hide post. "I tried the Samsung Galaxy S23 "for over a week "and here's my accessibility review "of my experience. "I tested all its low vision and magnifier settings "as well as Talkback ." Link graphic Samsung S23 Accessibility Review. Button more, link YOUTUBE.COM. Link Samsung S23 Accessibility Review. What's the Samsung S23 like from a blindness perspective?

Vikki: Once we've read a post, we press H once again to move to the next post in our News Feed. Let's try that now. Let's press H.

Screen Reader: Perkins School for the Blind link verified account heading level four.

Vikki: Now, in today's workshop, we've used several different keyboard shortcuts to move around our homepage. Our shortcuts include Tab, the arrow keys, and H to move by heading. These shortcuts move us forward or down our homepage. When we wish to move back or up our homepage, we can simply pair a shortcut with the Shift key. For example, when we want to move to the next Facebook post, we press H. If we want to move back to a previous post, we pressed Shift + H. Let's try out one more shortcut in today's workshop. We'll use our landmark shortcut to jump out of the News Feed and check out the remainder of our Facebook homepage. Let's press the letter D as in Delta to move by landmark.

Screen Reader: Complimentary landmark sponsored heading level three.

Vikki: Now, we've moved to our right pane where the first section is sponsored advertisements. Let's press H again to move to the next section Contacts.

Screen Reader: Contacts heading level three.

Vikki: This section contains a list of some of our Facebook friends. We'll press H once again.

Screen Reader: Group conversations heading level three.

Vikki: Now, we've moved to our last item, Group conversations. Here, we can create a new group and converse with group members. Be sure to check out the group's workshop in this series where we'll learn all about Facebook groups.

In today's workshop, we tried out several different keyboard shortcuts to move around Facebook's homepage. I'm Vikki Vaughan and I thank you for joining me.