J.J. Meddaugh

Imagine this. It's just before 7 pm you're weighing your options for what to do for the evening, and there are dozens of choices to consider. In one room, a moderated discussion about mental health and its role in sports is taking place. Across the hall, a group of entrepreneurs is sharing tips and tricks for how to grow a business. Yet another room has assembled to talk about the intersection of blindness and sexuality. Meanwhile, there's a bit of a crowd forming in the lounge to talk about tonight's NBA playoff games. An accomplished guitarist attracts a small following while playing some instrumental tunes. And yet another group is debating which style of pizza is the greatest.

After reading this description, you may think this is a scene straight out of a large national blindness convention, but this is one conference you don't need to leave your house to enjoy. It's all happening on Clubhouse, a wildly popular new chat and social app that places audio conversations at the forefront. Clubhouse initially came to iOS devices last year and slowly opened up to more users through an invite system, while the Android version debuted this past May.

Getting Started

Right now, you still technically need to be invited by an existing user to join, but it's probably not a large leap to say that some of your friends may already be using the app. If you have a friend on Clubhouse, ask them to invite you, which is done using your phone number. Many clubs (more on those in a second) also are able to give out invites to new users. Otherwise, you can simply download the app and join the waiting list, which is opening up rapidly. Clubhouse is available on the App Store for iOS or Google Play on Android. Naturally, thousands of blind and visually impaired people have embraced Clubhouse, since it focuses quite a bit on audio without a lot of other distractions.

When signing up, you will be asked to fill in a profile and also upload a profile picture. You can also link your Twitter or Instagram accounts to Clubhouse, making it easy for others to contact you. This latter point is important, since private messaging is not currently available on Clubhouse. You can update any of these items later on as well, and I highly recommend you do, especially so others can contact you or learn more about you. You also will be presented with a list of interests to select from, ranging from science and technology to religion and languages. Your experience will be vastly improved if you take the time to select categories that interest you, as your selections will heavily influence the rooms you see in your Hallway.

The Hallway

The main hub of activity for the app occurs in the Hallway. You will be presented with a series of rooms you can join, ranging from the ultra-serious to the just plain silly. In fact, all of the topics mentioned in the introduction to this article are regularly featured as rooms. In addition to the interests mentioned above, your Hallway will include rooms with other users you are following as well as rooms for clubs that you have joined. Other general interest or featured rooms will also be included.

For each room in the Hallway, you will hear the name of the room, including any club affiliation, the names of some of the people in the room, especially people you follow, the number of speakers or people on the stage, and the number of listeners, which you can think of as the total number of people in the room. The number of speakers is included in the number of listeners. Simply select the room if you wish to join it. Don't worry, you won't be on stage or unmuted when you join, so you can safely listen without worrying about disturbing the room.

Clubhouse says that you will see more rooms if you follow more people, which is true to an extent, especially for new users. But the big advantage of following more people is to see rooms where they are participating, akin to seeing where your friends are at a convention. While you may just be tempted to follow every person you know, like you would on Facebook or Twitter, you may want to be a bit more intentional in choosing who you follow, in order to curate a better list of rooms in your Hallway.

The Hallway also includes five buttons across the top of the screen, labeled with VoiceOver as Explore, Invite Friends, Bulletin, Activity, and Profile. Note the labels may be slightly different on the Android version. To follow people, or clubs, select the button labeled Explore, found in the top left corner of the app. On this screen, you can browse through suggested people to follow based on your contacts or people you are already following; search for specific people or people with a specific keyword in their profile, such as "psychology" or "programmer"; or browse through clubs that fall under the various categories mentioned above.

Invite Friends naturally allows you to invite others to the app using their phone number. It's a good idea to check with them first to see if they are interested or have already received an invite, as you can't take an invite back once it has been used. You start out with a small number of invites, and are given more if you are active on the app.

Bulletin allows you to schedule a room for a specific date or time. This is a great way to promote upcoming events. Activity shows a feed of recent events on the app, such as rooms started or scheduled by your friends, new people who have joined the app, and invites to clubs. Finally, Profile allows you to view or edit your public profile and adjust account settings.

The Room Experience

After entering a room, you will likely hear one or more people talking. These participants are on what's commonly called the "stage." You will be placed in the audience. VoiceOver users can perform a two-finger double tap to hear the name or names of the people currently speaking.

This screen includes several sections. Near the top left corner is a button to return to the Hallway. This will let you browse through other rooms while remaining in the current room. Also near the top of the screen is the title of the room, a link to your profile, and the name of the club hosting the room if there is one.

Below this is a list of people on the stage, with room moderators listed first. Each person's profile picture is displayed visually along with their name. Your screen reader will also indicate if the person is muted. If you swipe right past these people, the next group will include users followed by the speakers. This is often called the VIP section, though the VIP benefits are limited to having their name and picture placed above the rest of the audience. Finally, the Others in the Room section shows other people that are in the room. Only the people on stage have the ability to speak, and can do so at any time.

Near the bottom, there is a button to exit the room labeled Leave Quietly, one to invite your friends into the room if you think they may want to join, and a Raise Hand button. This last button is what is used to get the attention of any of the moderators on the stage and let them know you have an interest in speaking.

Rooms take on many different structures. Some are run with an organized flow and can often resemble a radio talk show, with a group of speakers and experts and one person from the audience brought up at a time to speak with those on the stage. Others exhibit more of an informal pub atmosphere, with anyone talking at any time. It's best to observe the flow and style of the room before requesting to join the stage. In addition, once you are invited to speak and choose to accept, you will actually be unmuted, so people can hear anything you say. It is generally good decorum, especially in more organized rooms, to mute yourself right away when you come on stage until you are called on by a moderator. The Mute button can be found in the bottom right corner of the screen. VoiceOver will say Selected if you are currently muted. Any moderator can also mute you at any time, which may occur if they are hearing a lot of background noise, and there is no guarantee, especially in a larger room, that you will be invited to speak at all.

Let's Talk about Clubs

I've mentioned clubs a few times in this article, and the concept is quite simple. As you might expect, a club is a group of people with a shared interest, and there are literally thousands of them on the app. Clubs can host rooms and also accept members. For instance, Blind Bargains has a club that has hosted a variety of technology and lifestyle-related rooms over the past few months. If you were to follow the Blind Bargains club, you would then be notified of new and scheduled rooms under that club. As you browse your hallway, you will be told which club is hosting a room. Just like in-person meetups, some clubs are more active than others, and you will likely want to do a bit of browsing to find some that fit your tastes.

Once you've been on the app for a week or two and actively participated in some rooms, you will be able to start your own club. You may want to check on the Explore screen to see if there is already a club that covers the same topics you were thinking about before starting your own. Clubs can literally be about just about anything, and seasoned users often will be members of dozens of clubs across the app.

Hosting your Own Room

Once you have found your way around the app for a bit, you may want to host your own room. You do this by selecting the Start a Room button from your Hallway. Here, you can give the room a title and also choose the type of room you wish to host. Private rooms are limited only to people you specifically invite. Social rooms can be joined by anyone you or other moderators are following, while public rooms are open to anyone on Clubhouse. If you are the administrator of a club or have access to host rooms, you can also host a room under a club from this screen.

Once you select the Start Room button, it will start to appear in the hallways of other users, especially people that are following you. As more people join, the room will gain more visibility and move toward the top of the list. You can also invite people into the room, or share the room on social media. As a moderator, you can choose who you want to invite onto your stage, send people back to the audience, or end the room.

Why Use Clubhouse

There have been a lot of chat and social apps that have been released over the past decade, but no audio-first app has gained as much attention as Clubhouse. This has attracted a slew of celebrities and influencers, and has fostered a community of people across the world connected by voice. Clubhouse can be used in numerous ways, and there's no need to pick just one. Business professionals use the app to find new clients and connect with potential partners. Sports lovers can celebrate or commiserate with fans of their favorite teams. Those looking for entertainment can listen to a near endless supply of musicians, comedians, or storytellers, and those with any of those talents can share them with others as well.

Specifically in the blindness sphere, many rooms discuss topics of particular interest to AccessWorld readers. There are rooms that discuss accessible apps for mobile phones, tactile imaging, or parenting while blind. One person who has really used Clubhouse as a platform to share and connect with customers is Matt Ater, Vice President of Vispero, the makers of JAWS, ZoomText, and Fusion. Matt cohosts rooms about JAWS that offer tips and tricks or discussions of new features, and also participates in a variety of other rooms on the platform. He has this to share about his experience with Clubhouse:

I have really enjoyed the experience of connecting to customers on Clubhouse. The ability to create events, develop connections with customers, and learn from our customers has been very useful for both the company and me. I have been working in this industry for over 27 years and have met so many people on this platform. The instant connection to people who either follow you or follow the club is more powerful than anything I have ever used in social media. It is one thing to post an issue, it is another to voice your thoughts and be able to provide feeling behind it.

Tips and Tricks

There are many ways to maximize use of the app, especially if you are using it to connect with new people or open up new opportunities. First, as mentioned above, fill out a complete profile, including a photo and social media links. I actually signed up for an Instagram account just for Clubhouse, since it created an easy way for people to contact me off the app. Not everyone has or chooses to use Twitter, and providing options for connecting is a key networking strategy. In addition, some moderators will not invite people on stage who do not have social media profiles linked, as a way to weed out potential trolls.

If you hear a speaker that sounds interesting to you and you want to hear more from them, give them a follow. While in a room, you do this by selecting their name, which will open up their profile. You can then read their bio and choose to follow if you wish. You can always unfollow someone later on if you would like. The same holds true with clubs that provide content you find interesting. Select the name of the club near the top of the screen when you are in a room, and then select the option to follow the club.

There are several things you can do to improve the way you sound. Believe it or not, one of the best ways to sound good without using expensive audio gear is to use your phone along with a wired pair of headphones without a mic. This will cause the app to use the built-in microphone and will also prevent audio from the speaker from degrading your sound quality. In most cases, Bluetooth headsets will not provide good audio quality for others listening to you, especially Apple's own AirPods. This is because these are primarily designed for making phone calls and not using audio-based apps. Also, once you are on the stage of a room, you can select to use a higher audio quality for your mic. To do this, select the button near the top of the screen labeled Room Actions and then select audio quality and set it to High. You will need to do this each time you enter a room.

One thing to note is that users are often frustrated by the number of notifications sent out by the app. I highly recommend selecting the settings option from your profile, and lowering the level of notifications you receive. You may also want to turn off the option labeled Featured Rooms in order to further limit the amount of notifications you receive.

Conclusion

Clubhouse has gained a lot of traction over the past several months as an audio app worth checking out. While others including Twitter are now attempting to copy their success, it remains a vibrant place to chat, network, and learn. The breadth of rooms available allows for a wide variety of conversations, and you can choose to participate actively or just listen and enjoy the show. It's essentially a conference that never ends, with something for just about anyone. Also, you may have noticed that I've barely mentioned accessibility in this article. That's because it's just built-in and works quite well. The team behind Clubhouse has intentionally made accessibility a focus for their apps, and while minor areas could always be improved, the app in its present form is one of the best chat experiences for the blind and sighted alike. Perhaps I'll find you roaming the hallways of Clubhouse soon.

This article is made possible in part by generous funding from the James H. and Alice Teubert Charitable Trust, Huntington, West Virginia.

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Author
J.J. Meddaugh
Article Topic
App Reviews