Part I

I have become a fairly skilled user of the Peapod service, and since I had so much trouble with it in the beginning, I thought I'd post my tips to this list.

Peapod is a shopping service that lets you buy your groceries over the web. They have a difficult, frame-filled site that isn't too accessible. But between improvements made to their site and improvements made to JFW, and a little sighted help, I finally can use it to get all my grocery shopping done.

Successful experiences are based on using JFW 3.3.26 or later and Internet Explorer 5.0 or later. It's even more difficult with earlier Internet Explorers and I never could use it with any older version of JFW.

Go to www.peapod.com. There, you'll be asked to supply a user name and password to get an account. This part is pretty accessible, but a little sighted help can speed things up. Your help doesn't need to be computer literate though. You'll also supply a "password hint" which will help you if you forget your password.

Once you register, the pages will be the same from then on. Registration is free and they don't need a credit card until you actually "check out" so you can play with the service all you want. 

After you register when you go to www.peapod.com, you can log in. There are links which read "user name" and "password" but don't pick them. They merely take you to help screens that tell you what the peapod service needs to know. Tab past all that until you get to an unlabeled edit box. This should contain your name. Depending on how you set up IE, it might fill it in for you automatically.

Fill in your name and tab once to get to another unlabeled edit box. Fill in your password which will appear as asterisks. Tab to a button labeled simply "button" and press enter. This is the actual log-in button and I only found it through hours of trial and error.

Once you are logged in you are at a screen with six frames. They are labeled "frame1-top" frame1-bottom" "frame 2" frame3" "frame4" and "frame5". I think the exposed object model for IE is what's providing this info to the JFW scripts because my sighted help doesn't see these frame labels onscreen. 

As you move through the frames with ctrl-tab, the contents of the frame will be read. Empty sounding frames actually have graphics in them. JFW won't even see the graphics as graphics but trust me, there's stuff there.

Before going further let me tell you that most of what you learned to do from the JFW help for IE won't work. Pressing Insert-F5 to make the page easy to read will reformat the page into something even less readable than what was originally there. Pressing Insert-F7 to get a handy list box of links you can select will give you a huge list box of links with names like "JavaScript B5423" and some of the links are simply extra-long URLS with lots of ampersands in them. Insert-F7 with this web page is TOTALLY USELESS!!! Insert-F9 which will let you select from a list box of frame names will let you select all the unhelpful names I already mentioned. So forget any of those insert keystrokes.

Don't try tabbing around much either. It will cause JFW to read more irrelevant and confusing information. 

But do try the ctrl-pgup and ctrl-pgdn once you are safely ensconced inside a frame and it will read just that frame, and scroll it if you are lucky. Sometimes for reasons known only to some developer at HJ, the frame won't scroll. My sighted help says each web page frame has its own scroll bar, but JFW doesn't see them on any page I've tried. So if a frame doesn't scroll you'll be forced to tab through a forest of irrelevance until you force IE to scroll the frame for you. And there are other tricks I'll get to soon.

Frame1 top-frame is used for the toolbar links that don't change. I know of no quick keystroke to get you there, so you just have to press tab a lot, but to do most things on Peapod, you'll want to make that your starting point. Here you can select links to create a personal list, express shop, view or change your order, brows the aisles, or search for a particular item.

When you select any link in this frame it changes the contents of Frame2 which is the main work frame. More about that later.

Frame1-bottom frame has Help and Exit. Why it needs its own frame, I don't know. 

Frame2 is the main work area. This is where groceries are listed when you search or browse, and it is also where you actually click to buy something. Its contents changes depending on what you are doing.

Frame3 is your cart view. You can always hear its contents reliably but JFW has trouble navigating around it with the JAWS cursor. When You land on something in frame3 with the JAWS cursor it vanishes. So it is hard to click on any links here. This is why I thought that the service was inaccessible. And the cart view, still largely is.

Frame4 changes also and is very graphical. JFW will find nothing there it can read. Sighted help can't tell when you are focused there either so it is hard to have them help you with what's there. 

Frame5 is also graphical with the same problems. I really wish the peapod webmaster would study up on alt tags. Maybe if we all send him grumpy emails en masse.

So we're back to frame1-topframe so let's brows the aisles. You tab over to Brows the aisles and press enter. Frame1-topframe is the only frame where tabbing will read you sensible information.

The list of aisles shows up in frame2 so you have to press ctrl-tab to get there. Once you are there this list is read automatically. You can turn on the JAWS cursor, and slowly review the list of aisles. You'll find yourself doing this a lot, navigating to frame2 and slowly reviewing long lists there. Sometimes you'll be taken directly to frame2 and sometimes not.

Sometimes JFW will do the right thing and restrict the JAWS cursor to frame2 and sometimes it won't. Why this behavior is so inconsistent I have no idea. If you hear surrounding frames, you'll just have to ignore the extraneous text which can be very annoying. You can also try navigating away, with control-tab, then back again to frame2 and that sometimes gets JFW to restrict the cursor correctly. You also need to wait sometimes until JFW finishes reading a frame before it restricts the JAWS cursor to review only that frame. I think this is a bug in their script and I wish HJ would simply openly acknowledge and publish bug-lists.

The aisle list includes produce, dairy, poultry, meat, ready-to-eat, general grocery and many other aisle names. Pick one and you will get a sub-category list still in frame2 which is luckily where your JAWS cursor stays. To pick all these links once you are in frame2 use the JAWS cursor and not the tab key. If you attempt to tab around frame2 or any of the other frames for that matter except frame1-top frame, you'll quickly discover that JFW will read utter nonsense. It will read things like "JavaScript B25494" and you will have no clue where you are. Also if you tab you often hear irrelevant information from the other frames and not what you need to know.

I have a little fantasy about punishing the Peapod webmaster by forcing him to surf his website with only Lynx for a solid week while in solitary confinement. Oh well, back to our tutorial.

Once you narrow down from category, to sub-category to even lower level categories, frame2 will finally fill with a list of actual food items. Since navigating and dealing with these food item lists are always the same, I'll deal with that in part two of this email.

Now say instead of browsing the aisles, you search for an item instead. you'd first go to frame1 top frame and select the link that says "search for a particular item"

Then you'd wait and you'd be placed in frame2. Here's as good a place as any to mention that you do a lot of waiting with peapod due to all the graphics your browser has to draw. If you get impatient and start tabbing or JAWS-cursoring around before it is finished you won't get the benefit of having JFW automatically read you the newly-redrawn frame2 and JFW also won't know which frame has your focus. So slurp some coffee after you select anything in frame1-top frame and wait until JFW starts automatically reading your newly-changed frame2. If you don't you will confuse JFW, it will take you to the wrong frame and it won't be able to locate anything.

So you've told it to search. You will after a few seconds or minutes of screen redrawing, land on an edit box in frame2 which helpfully has no label. If you tab off it and try to find it again it will vanish or at least, JFW won't be able to find it again, so don't do that. Instead, carefully type in a search term and tab once to the button labeled Search. Press enter.

You wait again, but eventually frame2 fills with a list of stuff, or at least a list of categories. Using your JAWS cursor, poke around and click on what's appropriate for you to narrow categories to an actual list of food items.

For example, if you searched for salad dressing, you will have thirteen categories. Some will be general Salad dressing bottled, and some specific, such as Kraft Salad Dressing. Put your JAWS cursor on the text for a category, click once and wait.

So before I describe how to buy something, I want to review this confusing frame thing. You go to frame1-top frame and pick a link. You wait. Stuff appears and is read to you from frame2. If you interrupt the process too early JFW won't restrict your JAWS cursor reading to only frame2, so you gotta wait.

Then you are already in frame2 so don't start tabbing around or JFW will get lost. Instead switch to your JAWS cursor and slowly read what's there, which is usually an edit box requesting more information or a list of stuff you can select from.

All right, well the next thing to tell you about is how to actually buy something. I'll write that up as part two of this email.

Part II

In the first part, I covered how to navigate around the peapod website and what it looks like to a JAWS user.

Now I'll cover how to actually buy something. 

Recall from part one, that your work area is frame2 where, after narrowing down your category list, a list of actual items to purchase appears. Each text item is accompanied by a group of invisible graphics. I say invisible because even with graphics turned on, JAWS will report those areas as blank. They aren't blank though and we should all complain to HJ that JFW should never say blank when something is actually there. 

You should first become adept at navigating this little list in frame2, which admittedly is easier to do with a Braille display. Use only your JAWS cursor to review this area, other methods won't work, and don't try any IE-specific JFW hotkeys. You can use PGUP and PGDN, CTRL-PGUP and CTRL-PGDN and the arrow keys when the JAWS cursor is on. 

Once you can navigate to an item, you are ready to attempt to work with it. If you click on the actual text of the item, your entire list disappears and frame2 is redrawn with new information. But sometimes you are no longer focused in frame2, which is real annoying. So if you aren't there, use ctrl-tab to navigate back to frame2 and let it get read to you. The frame now contains the nutritional information which in my opinion is the most valuable part of the peapod service. You can read the package size, its price, its number of serving size and nutritional information for a serving. This helps me track fat and calories in the food I buy without requiring sighted help, which I very much appreciate. 

If you don't get nutritional information, don't fret. For some items, none exists. Peapod gets it from a huge USDA database which is supposed to be public domain but which I have yet to locate on the internet.

After you're done with this frame, don't press alt-left arrow or click the back button to go back, because it will get JAWS all confused and you won't even be in frame2 anymore. Instead, tab once to a button labeled return to the previous screen, and you'll be exactly where you left off, browsing through the list of grocery items.

When you navigate to an item then and click on it, you will view any information associated with that item that Peapod has on file, but you won't be able to do anything else. This is also why I thought the service was not accessible. After all, on Amazon I can add items to my shopping cart. Here, I could hear, but not navigate a cart view and I could see a list of items but not put any in my cart!

The trick is to navigate to the left of the item you wish to buy. First position your JAWS cursor on the text of the item. Then move your JAWS cursor about three spaces to the left over a blank area. JAWS will say "Blank" and if you are using Braille, the item will be centered neatly on your Braille display with space on each side. Position your JAWS cursor about three spaces to the left of the item and click. 

If you actually bought something, nothing will happen at first. Then JAWS will say "JavaScript B-54934" or some other string of irrelevant numbers. Then, keep waiting, because next JAWS will read to you the updated cart view in frame3. Keep waiting because if you type while it is reading, JAWS will attempt to take you to frame3 where you can't navigate anyway. But if you just wait until all is quiet, you'll be back in frame2 exactly three spaces to the left of your item.

What's happened is that you've clicked on an invisible graphical Buy button. Unfortunately that button isn't always positioned three spaces to the left of an item. Sometimes it is five spaces, or four or two.

Other buttons are there, all invisible, and if you click on the wrong one, a wrong thing will happen. I need to ask my sighted help next time exactly how many wrong things are available.

One of the buttons, I believe it's a graphic of a pencil, takes you to a newly updated frame2 which shows you choices for substitutions. You can select whether the shopper can freely substitute or not, for example, substitute one brand of cheese for another.

If it does the wrong thing, you can almost always press tab once and land on a button labeled "return to the previous screen." So do that and try to add it to your cart once again.

Once items are in your cart, you can navigate to frame3 just to hear the list. You also can visually adjust their quantities by clicking on an edit box with a number, the default is 1, and backspacing and retyping the new quantity. But this is real hard with JAWS which keeps getting lost in frame3 so you can't tell which item you are editing the quantity for.

There is however, a better way to change quantities. Navigate to frame4 which previously only had invisible content, but now has a "review order" link and click that. 

Once you select to review your order, it will appear in the fairly accessible frame2. Navigate with the JAWS cursor, and to the left of each item about six spaces away is a number, usually 1. Click once on that number, press your delete key (you don't want forty-one cans of beets do you!!!) and type in a new quantity. Type zero to have that item erased from your cart when you exit.

When you review orders, you'll find JFW gets real stubborn about scrolling the frame. Sometimes you'll pres ctrl-PGDN and it simply rereads the stuff you've already heard. To trick JFW, click on the quantity number for the last frame's item. Don't click on the item itself or you'll get the nutritional information. Click on the quantity and you'll be in the edit box, but don't edit. Instead, press tab a few times, ignore the meaningless junk JFW reads, then press CTRL-PGDN. JFW scrolls the frame nicely so you can read more of your order and continue changing quantities.

At any time during buying or reviewing orders you can walk away from your computer. Peapod will wait for a while and then log you out and save everything. I've never lost any work, just lost a lot of time cursing at JFW!!!