The use of social media has become a major part of everyday life. The social media platform Facebook, allows people to share their life and interests with family through networking. Facebook created by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 whilst he attended Harvard University.
The platform was intended for university students, in 2006 if you had a valid email and was over the age of 13 you could join the site. The social network has grown vastly since then and now has an estimated over 1 billion users, making it the largest social network.
Using social media if you have a disability or you struggle to read small print can be pretty frustrating if you’ve not got the right settings or apps whether you need the font size enlarged or voice overs to guide you, there are a wide range of settings and add-ons that can assist you whilst using social media and browsing the web in general.
Accessibility Using Facebook
Facebook offers a keyboard navigation system to aid the visually impaired that eliminates the use of a mouse and pressing the down key constantly or search for the appropriate control such as liking a photo. The access keys will allow for quick and easy navigation through site a few of these found bellow.
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Home = 1
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Timeline = 2
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Friends = 3
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Inbox = 4
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Notifications = 5
To use the access keys will very dependant on the user’s system or browser for example Mac users will press Ctrl+Options with the Facebook access key compared to Windows users who will press the Alt+access Key. You can find more information at https://www.afb.org/aw/16/4/15469 (American Foundation for the Blind)
Google Chrome Extensions
If you find that the accessibility features on social media isn’t enough Google Chrome comes with built in extensions that can easily be added to your navigation bar through settings then the Google Chrome web store, with just a few clicks of the mouse you can add several extensions.
High Contrast
High contrast has a few features you can invert colours or you can have grey scale so you see no colours at all this will be very helpful if you’re colour blind and struggle to read different coloured text.
Firefox
If you want to use accessibly features in Firefox you can click on the menu bar and navigate to add-ons. Here you can enable features and add extra extensions.
Andriod Accessibility Settings
The android operating system has really thought about accessibility in great detail and very easy to navigate through settings as accessibility has its own section.
Screen Reader
For Visually impaired people you have 2 really helpful settings to optimise screen reader and visibility enhancements. You have voice assistant were the phone will describe elements on the screen where it be text or navigation bars to how much battery is remaining it will also tell you how many items are on the screen that you can interactive with all you have to do is press anywhere on the screen to get a description.
Visibility Enhancements
In these settings you can adjust the font size, you can change the size of the keyboard and the actual shape of the buttons. There are options to have a magnifying widow the will allow you to just swipe your fingers and zoom in anywhere on the page.
Hearing Enhancements
In here you have some very helpful settings for the hard of hearing such as sound detector that you can set to vibrate when a door bell goes off or a baby crying aid you in life and whilst using the device. You can also adjust the sound output to enhance hearing aid quality.
iOS Systems
Apple have very similar settings to the android it has its own accessibility area with vast amounts of settings. The most notable is for the hard of hearing you can now connect your device to your Bluetooth hearing aid.
I have tried to cover the main features of the accessibility setting if you’re having problems adjusting setting using any social media platform always remember that the website may not have the options to adjust anything. There will always be settings to adjust on which ever browser you may be using or on your hand held device.
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