Friending

Hi, my name is Vikki Vaughan, and today we'll discuss one of the main uses of Facebook, connecting with friends. When we friend someone on Facebook, we have access to each other's activities and we can share life events. We do this through posts, stories, photos, and videos.

In today's workshop, we'll learn how to search for and add a friend, and accept a friend's request. We will also talk about what it means to follow celebrities, groups, and businesses that we're interested in.

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.

Let's start out with searching for friends. We've already logged into our account. Let's press Control plus Home to move to the top of our homepage.

Screen Reader: Banner Landmark visited link Facebook.

Vikki: It's nice to know that we can use our control key to silence our screen reader.

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

Vikki: I happen to know that my friend Ricky Enger is on Facebook, so we'll search for her. It's helpful to include both first and last names to narrow our search. I'll type in her name.

Screen Reader: R-I-C-K-Y, space, E-N-G-E-R.

Vikki: And press the enter key.

Screen Reader: Two friends Facebook document result filters region search results heading level one.

Vikki: A new window opens that displays a list of possible names and profile pictures that match or are close to matching Ricky's name. Let's press the H key to move by headings into the list of search results.

Screen Reader: Filters heading level two.

Vikki: We'll press H again to move to our search results.

Screen Reader: Search results main landmark people heading level two.

Vikki: Well, it turns out there are several people named Ricky Enger in the list. Now, this is not uncommon with more than 3 billion Facebook users worldwide. Facebook suggests that in addition to including a picture of ourselves, we should also include some identifying information in our profile. This helps friends find us more easily. Let's tab to the first name in the list.

Screen Reader: Ricky Enger link.

Vikki: Now let's down arrow to hear more about this Ricky Enger.

Screen Reader: Practice Leader Assistive Technology at Hadley West Texas A&M University.

Vikki: Yes, this is the Ricky we're searching for. Let's tab to the button labeled Add Friend.

Screen Reader: Add Friend button.

Vikki: And we'll activate it by pressing the space bar.

Screen Reader: Cancel request.

Vikki: When Ricky accepts our request, we'll be able to see each other's posts and exchange messages. She doesn't have to send us back a friend request. Once she accepts our friend request, we're good to go. If we don't see the Add Friend button, it's because the person we're trying to befriend has adjusted their privacy settings to block friend requests. How do we know when someone has sent us a friend request? Let's find out. We go to our address bar with our keyboard shortcut: Alt plus D, as in delta.

Screen Reader: Toolbar address and search bar edit has auto complete control-

Vikki: I'll press control to silence my Screen Reader. Now, let's type W W W.

Screen Reader: W W W.

Vikki: Dot facebook.com.

Screen Reader: Dot F-A-C-E-B-O-O-K dot C-O-M.

Vikki: Forward slash find dash friends.

Screen Reader: Slash F-I-N-D dash F-R-I-E-N-D-S.

Vikki: Then we press our enter key.

Screen Reader: Facebook.com/findfriends selected.

Vikki: We'll use our control key again to silence. Let's press H to move to our friends heading.

Screen Reader: Friends navigation landmark friends heading level one.

Vikki: Now we'll tab to the friend request link. First, we'll tab a couple of times past the notifications button and the home link.

Screen Reader: Edit notifications settings button, home link.

Vikki: Then we'll tab once again to move to the friend request link.

Screen Reader: Friend requests link.

Vikki: Let's press the space bar to jump into this heading.

Screen Reader: Friend requests navigation landmark friend requests heading level one

Vikki: We'll press tab.

Screen Reader: View sent requests button.

Vikki: We'll tab once again to land on the first friend request.

Screen Reader: Vikki Vaughn graphic Vicki Vaughn four W confirmed button delete link.

Vikki: It happens to be from someone named Vikki Vaughn. We're using my personal Facebook account just for demonstration purposes. Now let's tab to the confirm button.

Screen Reader: Confirm button link.

Vikki: Finally, we press the space bar to activate this link and accept this new friend request.

Screen Reader: Banner landmark visited link Facebook.

Vikki: Voila. We're friends. If we don't wish to be Facebook friends, we tab to the delete button. When we delete a friend request, the person who sent the request is not notified. They cannot send us another request for one year. Facebook allows us to control who can add us as a friend. If you'd like to learn how to set up this control as well as information about unfriending or blocking someone on Facebook, check out the resources below this workshop. You may have heard a term associated with Facebook and other social media platforms called "following." An example might be following pages of organizations, brands, and businesses. Whenever we like a page, we automatically start following it. A good example is Hadley's page. Let's check it out. We'll go to the top of our page by pressing Control plus Home.

Screen Reader: Banner landmark.

Vikki: Now let's tab to the search edit field.

Screen Reader: Search Facebook combo box collapsed has auto complete editable search Facebook blank.

Vikki: We'll press control to silence. Then we'll type Hadley in the edit field.

Screen Reader: H-A-D-L-E-Y.

Vikki: Finally, we'll press enter to begin our search.

Screen Reader: Two Hadley search results Facebook document.

Vikki: A list of possible matches appears in the search results. The results are categorized into different groups, such as people and organizations. Since Hadley is an organization, let's press the H key several times to move past the people heading to find the Hadley organization.

Screen Reader: Filters heading level two.

Vikki: We'll press H again.

Screen Reader: Search results main landmark people heading level two.

Vikki: And let's press H once again.

Screen Reader: Hadley visited link heading level two.

Vikki: Now let's down Arrow to hear more about Hadley.

Screen Reader: Nonprofit organization. 4.5 out of 5, closing soon, 11 K followers.

Vikki: Let's down arrow again.

Screen Reader: With Hadley, you can discover new ways to do things that may have become difficult with vision loss.

Vikki: And we'll down arrow once again.

Screen Reader: Eight posts in the last two weeks.

Vikki: And you guessed it, let's down arrow one more time.

Screen Reader: Button follow.

Vikki: Now we'll press the space bar to activate the follow button.

Screen Reader: Visited link following.

Vikki: We're now following Hadley, and we'll see their posts in our newsfeed. We can also follow public figures like celebrities, athletes, and musicians. This allows us to follow people without having to share a connection through a friend request. Once we follow someone, their posts will appear in our newsfeed on our homepage. In today's workshop, we explored searching for potential Facebook friends. We also learned how to send a friend request as well as check for friend requests from others. Lastly, we learned all about following public figures, organizations, and businesses. I'm Vikki Vaughn, and I thank you for joining me.