Social Media Accessibility Review
Prepared by Media Access Australia (MAA)
Martin Cahill
Media Access Australia
(MAA)
martin.cahill@mediaaccess.org.au
Dr Scott Hollier
Media Access Australia
(MAA)
scott.hollier@mediaaccess.org.au
Social
Media Accessibility Review -
Version 1.0
Prepared by
Martin Cahill
Media Access Australia
(MAA)
Dr Scott Hollier
Media Access Australia
(MAA)
If you would like to
receive more information please contact:
Martin Cahill at Media
Access Australia
martin.cahill@mediaaccess.org.au
Media Access Australia
4.08, 22-36 Mountain
St
Ultimo NSW 2007
Tel: 02 9212 6242
Social media allows anyone with an Internet connection to
publish their digital content, including articles, photographs, music and videos
to the web. Social media is an increasingly important aspect of modern life. We
all have a place in the network and a role to play. We should all be able to
share photographs, important debates, notices and conversations that extend
across our workplace, charitable interests and personal lives.
The Social Media
Accessibility Review aims to improve understanding of accessible design and
raise awareness of good practice across the largest social media players. For
Version 1.0 of this report Media Access Australia has considered six of the
most popular social media services according to a number of statistical
measures.
Media Access Australia has ranked the following services in order of accessibility:
1. Facebook: Facebook has made great efforts to include a wealth of accessibility features and is a good choice for people with disabilities.
2. Skype: Skype has delivered an accessible product, but they must be conscious that new versions maintain the good work done to date.
3. YouTube: YouTube has put a lot of work into the accessibility features of their site and this has been backed by a recently launched centralised accessibility portal offered by Google, YouTubeÕs owners.
4. Flickr: Flickr is only somewhat accessible. It still has some way to go before the site will be open to all users, but the launch of an accessible lab shows promise.
5. Twitter: Twitter has grown rapidly over a short period of time and the site has fallen short of introducing a number of easy to install accessibility features.
6. MySpace: MySpace is an inaccessible site. It has failed to deliver an accessibility policy and has no evidence of accessible design built into the service.
The review suggests that if a site is accessible it is typically successful. Media Access Australia predicts that in such a competitive market accessibility will become central to the development of social media businesses.
Media Access Australia has published a number of tips and tricks to help vision, hearing and physically impaired users to access popular social media websites including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Please visit Media Access Australia/ New Media for more details.
Glossary
Accessibility: Making web pages easier to navigate and read.
While this is primarily intended to assist those with disabilities, it can be
helpful to all readers.
Audio Description: Descriptive narration of key visual elements
in a video or multimedia product. In audio description, narrators typically
describe actions, gestures, scene changes and other visual information.
CAPTCHA: An image used to decide whether a program or
online service is being operated by a human or machine user.
Closed Caption: System to display text on a television or
video screen to provide additional or interpretive information to viewers who
wish to access it.
HTML: Hypertext Markup
Language (HTML) is the set of markup symbols or codes
inserted in a file intended for display on a web page. The markup
tells the web browser how to display the page for the user.
JAWS: Job Access With Speech (JAWS) is a screen
reader and software program for visually impaired users, produced by the Blind
and Low Vision Group
MAC OS X: Mac OS X is a line of computer operating
systems developed, marketed and sold by Apple Inc.
Screen
Magnification: Software that
interfaces with a computer's graphical output to present enlarged screen
content.
Screen Reader: software application that attempts to
identify and interpret what is being displayed on the screen
Social Media: Social media are works of user-created video,
audio, text or multimedia that are published and shared in a social
environment, such as a blog, wiki or video hosting site.
Social Networking: A broad class of web sites and services that
allow you to connect with friends, family, and colleagues online, as well as
meet people with similar interests or hobbies.
Microsoft Windows: Series of software operating systems and
graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft.
Social Media allows anyone with an Internet connection to
publish their digital content, including articles, photographs, music and
videos to the web. Everything that you upload has a potential audience, possibly
one, but equally millions. Ultimately, you have control. You alone will decide
who can see your work.
Social media is an
increasingly important aspect of modern life. It supports our human need for
social interaction. It has the potential to reconnect communities, friendships
and family members.
We all have a place in
the network and a role to play. We should all be able to share photographs,
important debates, notices and conversations that extend across our workplace,
charitable interests and personal lives.
Social media can take many
different forms, including blog sites, picture sharing, video sharing and
podcasts. There are a number of services on the web. Here are some of the
popular ones:
Skype: Make free video
and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users.
Facebook: Connect to friends and send messages.
YouTube: Upload and
share videos.
Flickr: Upload and share photographs.
Twitter: Send and read
messages.
MySpace: Connect to
friends and share music.
ÒFor someone who has always
struggled to communicate verbally and who has often felt isolated and alone
when in group gatherings, social networking has opened a world to me.Ó [1]
ÒWith my accessible computer I
can do almost anything I can imagine. I have used it to compose and play music.
I browse and shop on the Internet. I meet new friends who have then become real
friends who visit me physically É my life is interesting and productive, and full
of things I canÕt wait to do.Ó [2]
Social media is
social. It is important for us all and it should be open to all.
It is not necessarily
about living a life on the Internet. It is about bypassing distance in the real
world, making new friends, and participating in all the conversations between
our family members and the communities we live in.
Social media can break
down barriers and change lives. For example, a hearing impaired child can now
share stories with their friends via Skype, and a vision impaired user can read
about his brotherÕs trip to the Far East via a blog site.
Social media is truly
social. It connects the dots.
Social media, like no
other technology before it, has the potential to include us all. There are some
challenges, but they can be overcome.
Some of the challenges
include:
á Photographs and images can be an important part
of social media web services. Many people who upload photographs will often add
titles and tags so that the image is described. However, not everyone does this
thus preventing a blind or vision impaired user from accessing the whole story.
á Comments or links can change in ways that are
undetectable to the screen reader or fall outside the viewing window of
screen-magnification.
á Online videos rarely offer captioning or audio
description. This is improving and the web being all about support and
collaboration now offers captioning tools. We all have an opportunity to
caption online videos.
á CAPTCHAs devices have been widely adopted across a
number of social media and social networking services. They are there to stop
malicious attacks and ensure the registration is actually a human user and not
a machine. Because CAPTCHAs rely on visual perception
users unable to view a CAPTCHA will be unable to complete the registration.
Sites implementing CAPTCHAs should provide an audio
version in addition to the visual method.
With Skype you can make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users.
Web Address: http://www.skype.com
Recent releases of Skype have taking into account those who are blind and vision impaired, and those who cannot use a mouse. The latest version of Skype is Version 4.1 for Windows and Version 2.8 Mac OS X. Skype for Windows contains a number of new features including screen sharing, better video quality and accessibility. The MAC version is reliant on the accessibility features built into the MAC OS X operating software.
Skype Version 4.1 for Windows has specifically included the following accessible features:
á Improved keyboard navigation,
á Support for vision impaired users, using screen reading software such as JAWS.
á Microsoft Active Accessibility (MSAA) support.
Skype has highlighted a number of known issues that users may experience whilst using this version, in particular voicemail and file transfer being inaccessible, but this should be fixed in upcoming versions. Skype recommends that you regularly update your version of Skype, in order to ensure you have installed the latest features, call quality improvements, bug fixes and security updates.
Skype is easy to find and download. It has clearly considered issues of accessibility and this is underlined by the accessibility option found under Tools > Accessibility. Core functions, such as add contact and call friend are clearly set out and marked. However, the latest version of Skype is beginning to look cluttered as it now offers a number of additional features, including screen sharing, text messaging and games.
Media Access Australia concludes that Skype has delivered an accessible product, but must be conscious that new versions maintain the good work done to date.
Facebook lets you connect to friends and send messages.
Web Address: http://facebook.com
During 2008 Facebook undertook a comprehensive design review to improve the way we all share and discover information on the service. As part of this review the company partnered with the America Foundation for the Blind (AFB) to make the site more accessible to users who are blind or vision impaired. The President of the AFB, Carl Augusto, stated in a press release that this makes sense from FacebookÕs perspective.
ÒThere are a lot of vision impaired people on the
planet, and they want to connect to their friends, relatives and peers just as
much as you and me.Ó Carl Augusto, President of the
AFB.
Carl goes on to suggest that Social Networking sites present some significantly difficult challenges, but through its work with the AFB the site now boasts a number of accessibility improvements including an audio CAPTCHA service, a HTML only version of the site and navigational shortcut keys.
Facebook has taken great care in the overall design and usability of their service. The menus, in particular, are very clear and positioned where you would expect them to be – along the top of the page and the left-pane. Forms are simple and well laid out.
The registration process is still reliant on a CAPTCHA with an audio alternative, but this can cause problems in some cases. Graphical icons can also disappear when users adopt contrasting colour schemes, however Facebook has done a good job of providing text alternatives.
Facebook has made great efforts to include a wealth of accessibility features and is a good choice for people with disabilities.
YouTube allows users
to upload and share videos.
Web Address: http://youtube.com
YouTube has been working on a number of projects to make videos more accessible to everyone. One new feature is the ability to include captions in videos. When uploading a video to YouTube you also have the option to upload a closed caption file for the video. You can even include multiple languages. When you have uploaded the file, viewers will be able to activate the captions through the video player menu.
CaptionTube is a utility for adding closed captions to YouTube videos. It provides improved precision with a scaleable timeline. You can also make changes to captions and preview them immediately. It also allows you to create multiple language tracks.
You can learn more about video captioning and CaptionTube by visiting the CaptionTube help pages.
Regrettably, audio description has yet to be introduced and there are no reported plans for YouTube to offer an audio description service. The BBC is the only broadcaster in the world to include audio described TV programmes in its video-on-demand service. These are accessible through the BBC iPlayer, but this is restricted to UK residents.
YouTube is well presented and developers have taken into account issues of accessibility throughout the design of the site. The search box is easy to find and there are straightforward and recognizable menu options. The zoom feature now available in Microsoft Windows 7 and Mac OS X is compatible and works well with YouTube clips. You can zoom into all streaming clips. YouTube has also built in a number of accessibility features including an alternative to the CAPTCHA and also the option to upload and watch captions with YouTube content.
YouTube has put a lot of work into the accessibility features of their site and this has been backed by a recently launched centralised accessibility portal offered by Google; YouTubeÕs owners.
Flickr allows its users to upload and share
photographs with friends, family, and photography contacts.
Web Address: http://flickr.com
Flickr has no public policy in respect to accessibility. However, Flickr is owned and managed by Yahoo! and in 2008 the group created an Accessibility Lab. The lab focuses on training developers and engineers in order to make them aware of what it is like to use a computer without a mouse or being able to the see the computer screen. The team aims to make sure every corner of Yahoo! is fully accessible and that every one is able to use Yahoo! as their website of choice. Yahoo! India also recently announced (June 2009) an Accessibility Lab in Bangalore, as products are increasingly being designed and developed at the Bangalore site.
For people who are blind or vision impaired the flickr welcome page is not very clear. It is not intuitive what the site is for or what you are supposed to do. The search button is difficult to find because of the faint line around the edges. Once a user has found a photograph there are discrepancies between accessible menu items and non-accessible menu items. In particular, the options that sit directly above a photograph are not accessible, yet the main menu buttons are clearly marked and accessible.
Flickr is only somewhat accessible. It still has some way to go before the site will be open to all users, but the launch of an accessible lab shows promise.
Twitter: Send and read messages.
Web Address: http://twitter.com
Twitter is a text-based media. It does not rely on videos or pictures. Users submit short text updates of up to 140 characters to share with friends (otherwise known as followers).
Given a text-based media we might expect twitter to be an accessible service. However, Twitter does not list any formal accessibility policy and has never spoken about accessible developments in its official blog.
Twitter has a philosophy of keeping things simple and intuitive. They rarely innovate or change the basic features of the site. It is therefore surprising to learn that Twitter has a number of accessibility pitfalls. There are many!
Firstly, there is no accessibility button or link outlining the accessible features of the website. Secondly, the registration makes use of a Captcha device. There is an audio option, but the link is particularly small making it difficult for a user with a vision impairment to access the service. Other problems occur when users attempt to resize the text. Twitter has text resizing locked.
Other critics report that links can only be activated using a mouse. The links for replying to a tweet, making a tweet a favourite, and deleting a tweet can only be activated using the mouse on the standard Twitter website. The favourite, reply, and delete links are revealed when the user hovers the mouse over a tweet. There are no commands for deleting tweets or direct messages.
Twitter has grown rapidly over a short period of time and the site has fallen short of introducing a number of easy to install accessibility features.
MySpace is Social Networking tool and popular amongst bands, musicians and artists.
Web Address: http://myspace.com
Until April 2008 MySpace was the most popular social networking site in the United States. Based on monthly unique visitors, the site has now been overtaken by its main competitor Facebook.
MySpace has never publicly released an accessibility policy. The MySpace portal has no link pointing to accessible versions of the site or workarounds for known accessible issues. A search for ÔaccessibilityÕ (and related terms) yielded Ôno resultsÕ in their Help and FAQ pages.
The most critical and immediate issue is a CAPTCHA (visual verification) appearing as part of the signup process. The CAPTCHA does not feature an audio option or any other alternative means of registering for the service.
MySpace provides no alternative to the visual verification used as part of the signup process.
A number of groups and petitions have been lobbying MySpace to provide an alternative to the CAPTCHA device. Reports suggest that MySpace has not made any formal response – the call for action has been ignored.
Once a user has registered, they are then faced with a number of additional accessibility barriers. Namely, MySpace pages are designed by users of the service, so a very large proportion of pages do not satisfy the web accessibility standards stated by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Poorly formatted code can cause accessibility problems for those using software such as screen readers. According to Wikipedia, the MySpace home page, as of 20 May 2009, fails HTML validation with around 101 errors using the W3C's validator.
MySpace is an inaccessible site. It has failed to deliver an accessibility policy and has no evidence of accessible design built into the service.
The results of the Social Media Accessibility Review are mixed, and in some cases surprising. Only two of the six sites reviewed could be tagged as accessible, and one site (MySpace) fell severely short of providing any accessibility policy or design features. The service appears static and unable or unwilling to remove some of the most obvious barriers to its service.
We might also expect services that rely more on text and less on video and photographs to rank highly on most measures of accessibility. However, Twitter has fallen short of introducing a number of easy to install accessibility features.
The majority of sites have, however, been proactive in their response to accessible design and accessible services, and in some cases have shown real innovation. The captioning feature of YouTube is a giant step towards globally accessible media and YouTubeÕs industry has been shared by Facebook who have made great efforts to include a wealth of accessibility features across their website.
Media Access Australia has ranked the following services in order of accessibility:
1. Facebook – Accessible.
2. Skype – Accessible.
3. YouTube - Somewhat accessible.
4. Flickr - Somewhat accessible.
5. Twitter - Somewhat inaccessible.
6. MySpace – Inaccessible.
The review lends weight to the argument that if a site is accessible it is typically successful. Not only does an accessible site open its doors to an additional 40%[3] of its potential market, it also provides a more intuitive and user-friendly experience to all other users. Facebook is now the number one social network in the US with more than 300 million active users. MySpace, in comparison, is in free-fall having lost over 30% of the market[4].
Media Access Australia predicts that in such a competitive market accessibility will become central to the development of social media businesses. YouTube is seeking to differentiate its video sharing service from competitors by introducing captioned content. Google itself prides itself on accessible products. There was no greater accessible innovation than google.com with a simple search box and a search button. Apple too is widely celebrated for making devices easy to use and now makes accessibility a significant part of the marketing of its products.
The Social Web holds great potential, organisations are moving fast, but there is much more to do. Those that lead and work on behalf of accessible media and design might just find themselves on top when the race is won.
[1] Web: http://www.disaboomlive.com/Blogs/left_thumb_blogger/archive/2008/01/18/social-networking-including-or-excluding-people-with-disabilities.aspx
[3] In 2004 a study commissioned by Microsoft showed that among adult computer users in the United States 1 in 4 has a vision difficulty, 1 in 4 has a dexterity difficulty, and 1 in 5 has a hearing difficulty.
[4] ÔGrowth of Facebook leaves MySpace in dustÕ, CNET News, October 13, 2009.