The purpose of this blog is the exchange of ideas and information. One of the pleasures of writing this blog is reading and responding to the comments it engenders. One of the frustrations of this blog has been how difficult it is to leave comments and replies. I have found that to be the case and many readers have told me the same thing. The difficulty rises proportionately with increased vision loss. To address this issue, the following observations and suggestions are offered.
Every reader of this blog has the opportunity to leave a comment or reply to an existing comment. This process takes four steps. First, compose your message. Second, type your email address. Third, type your name. Fourth, activate the “Post Your Comment Button.”
Sighted readers and visually impaired readers using screen magnification software report little difficulty with this process. They click each edit box in turn, enter the text, then click on the Post comment Button.
Screen reader users report the most difficulty. The following steps have worked for me. If there is a better way, please let me know and we’ll all benefit. My scientific method may need improvement. I use the following software: Windows 7, Word 2010 and JAWS 12.
Other operating systems and software applications may require tweaking these steps. Here goes:
- Press Enter on “Leave a Comment” or “Reply” after the blog you wish to comment on
- Press Insert F5 to bring up a list of form fields
- Down arrow to “Enter Your Comment Here” and press Enter
- You will hear, “Type in Text”
- Type your comment here or cut and paste your comment that you composed in a Word document
- Press Insert F5 and down arrow to “Email Address” and press Enter
- Type your email address and press Insert F5
- Down arrow to “Name” and press Enter
- Type your name and press Insert F5
- Down arrow to “Post Comment Button and press Enter
Still with me? Now for the “Yes, but” department. You only need to fill in the email and name edit boxes when you make your first comment. Subsequent comments from the
same computer will already have your email and name filled in automatically. If in doubt, press Insert 8 to read that edit box to see if it’s empty or if it contains your info.
So, there you have it. I hope this works and works well. Let’s give this remedy some practice. If we need further modifications, we will address them. We will assemble our combined experiences and present them to the administrator of the blog site, which is the company called WordPress, which makes the rules for the mechanics of how comments and replies are created and posted. Meanwhile, happy reading!
Jalapeños in the Oatmeal 
I’ve been lurking around your blog of late, reading and not commenting at all.
I’ve got RP and I haven’t been handling it so well. I wanted to see how others were handling things and to learn from them somehow. Your posts have been a great help to me so I say thank you.
I had troubles leaving comments in wordpress for a while, but then I found that if I go past the “leave a comment” area and press the down arrow until I hear the word “guest” and hit enter there, everything goes well. After linking to “guest” I hit the up arrow until I hear the funny “bloop” JAWS makes when you’re in an edit box, compoese my comment, hit tab until it asks for my email address, put my email address in the edit box whre they ask for my email address, write my name where they want my name, then hit the down arrow key until I hear the “post your comment” button, hit the space bar, and Voila! Let’s see if it works now….
Hi M and Beth, and I say thank you. M, I hope you keep coming back. And, I am touched by your constant comments, no matter how they are posted.
Hi M and Beth. Jeff here, again. I meant to say to M that I hope you keep lurking around this blog. I like the word “lurking.” And I hope lurking helps. And Beth, it is you whom I thank for your constant comments. I write this P. S. reply because my first reply, posted as Comment #3 about ten minutes ago, did not contain the edits I made prior to clicking the “Post Comment Button.” Thus, I have discovered another wrinkle in my foolproof plan: any changes to the text you type into the Comments edit box will not be reflected in what is posted. JAWS will read your changes but they are not posted. So, I have reverted to Plan B, which is that I compose and edit my comment/reply in a blank Word Document that I open just for this purpose, then I copy and paste it into the “Leave Comment” edit box. That way, what I want to get posted actually gets posted. Oh well, another lesson learned. Leaving comments is not for the faint of heart, I guess.
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