Bluesky accessibility

I just joined Bluesky a few weeks ago and had a similar impression when I tried it out, but I haven't gone back in it since. I did find their feed more difficult to read through than Facebook, because where each post in the Facebook news feed is treated as one single object by VoiceOver, and you can double tap or use the roter to interact with it, VoiceOver lands on every element inside a Bluesky post, which made it much less comfortable for casusal scrolling. Have you or anyone found a smooth way to browse through the Bluesky feed? That was the main thing keeping me from really jumping into it. Since it's been quite some time since this original post, I'd be interested in hearing your current accessibility thoughts on it or if you have any other tips or tricks for VO/iOS users. Thanks!

It's as you describe on the iOS app, lots of swiping through things.
The website has a lack of headings or elements like that to grab onto with a screenreader, but is a little more readable in chunks or objects.
I mainly use the website and read the feed of what I have followed. I wouldn't call it inaccessible, but it could use some improvement.

Hi,
There is a third-party app, called, "Skeets" which aims to make BlueSky fully accessible. the developer is very receptive to feedback & responds quickly. the app is farely new but has consistantly recieved about 3 or 4 updates each month. The app is free with in-app purchases. the app also works on the ipad.

Seconding skeets. It's what I use.

Sadly, I don't think there is a good mac app yet. I use mona but have had to spin up a little cloud based application that converts between BlueSky and Mastodon. It was a little tricky. Hopefully the Spring/Mona dev will build a BlueSky client. The accessibility for both is awesome.

How can I get An invite code?
Thank you

You shouldn't need one. It's open to all.

Thank you! 😀

Just fooled with the app again. I'm not sure who to blame, but my VO rotor will not allow links or images, such as for the user names and avatars on posts, to be selected for swiping between elements. in the Blue Sky app. Those two are in my rotor in other apps, but not Blue Sky. Is that an iOS issue or a Blue Sky issue?

I had been trying to use BlueSky through a web browser on a Mac, and it was a frustrating experience. It didn't help that I had seen posts here at AppleVis over a year old, saying they had reported accessibility issues to the BlueSky support team.

Half my battle with any social media is learning what I can and can't do. It's not well-documented.

Question: how would I see who another BlueSky user is following? Because if I search for that in Google, I get results like, "how to see who is following you," or "how to see who you're following," and that's not what I'm after. It's like no one else cares who another user is following, which is odd, because that's a pretty critical piece of social media functionality.

In skeets, my feed is showing a bunch of posts from people I don't follow. Is there some way to turn this off? This was one of the reasons I left Twitter. Thanks.

> In skeets, my feed is showing a bunch of posts from people I don't follow.

On the left side of your window in Skeets is a sidebar. The third section is labeled "Feeds".

By default Bluesky gives you two feeds: "Following" and "Discover".

My guess is that you're looking at the "Discover" feed. If you choose the "Following" feed, you should only see posts from people you follow.

* Never mind, I think I figured it out from the app store description and the ones that end in dollar signs.*

What exactly will the in app purchases be? I will not be making any in app purchases. Is it going to pester me?

Whether I select Discover or Following, I get posts by people I'm not following. The only difference is that when I select Following, I get posts by people I might actually be interested in.

For example. I follow a bunch of people who are authors. When I select Following, I see a bunch of posts by other authors.

This is what I meant when I said social media, in general, is not well documented. Users are expected to learn not just the interface, but the entire feature set, by ESP or osmosis. It's frustrating for sighties and twice as frustrating for blindies.

Hi Paul.
These are most likely reposts by people you follow. Open the Show Filters menu in the top right and there is an option to switch off reposts.
HTH,
Dave

Nothing looked like a repost or a quote, at least not that VoiceOver was announcing. But I turned off reposts and quotes in the filter options, and suddenly my feed only shows people I'm following. Yay!

So if one of the people I follow sees a Stephen King post and reposts it, and I have reposts turned on, then that Stephen King post shows up in my feed, with no indication about who was the person who reposted it? I never would have figured that out on my own.

Yes, it took me some time to cop it too. The dev has done a good job with VoiceOver support, but there’s definitely some improvements that could be made, including that.
I’ve been meaning to send them some feedback. It’s good overall though, and a million times better than the Bluesky app.
Dave