Social Networking Accessibility

Léonie WatsonDirector of Accessibility, Nomensa

@LeonieWatson @we_are_nomensa

Why is social networking popular?

People and social networking

• 62% of adults now use social networking;

• 22% of time online is spent social networking.

Businesses and social networking

• 65% of the world's top companies use social networking;

• Revenue from social networking commerce will hit £5.75 billion (AUS$8.9b) in 2012.

Government and social networking

• More than half of UK MPs and nearly half of Australian MPs use Twitter;

• The Australian and UK governments both have Facebook pages.

Social networking appeal

Who are the social networking players?

The big three

Twitter statistics

• More than 500 million users;• Over 340 million tweets every day.

Facebook statistics

• More than 900 million users;• 20 million apps installed every day.

Youtube statistics

• More than 800 million unique visitors each month;• Over 4 billion videos viewed every day.

How accessible is social networking?

Twitter website

Twitter colour contrast

Twitter spoken language

Twitter: Form labels

Facebook website

Facebook: Text descriptions

Facebook: Keyboard only

Facebook: Heading Structure

Youtube website

Youtube: Transcripts and captions

Youtube: Skip links

Youtube: Keyboard focus

Are there social networking alternatives?

Easy Chirp

Mobile.Twitter

Twiterific

The Qube

Twinbox

<Screenshot of TwInbox/Outlook>

Facely HD

Windows Messenger

Nomensa AMP

How can social networking be more accessible?

Twitter tweets

• Use proper words and phrases;• Avoid excessive acronyms and abbreviations.

Twitter hashtags

#thishastagisnotgood;

#ThisHashtagIsGreat.

Facebook photos

• Add captions to photos;• Describe the content of the image.

Facebook updates

• Use plain and simple language;• Avoid displaying text in images.

YouTube transcripts

• Create a text transcript;• Include dialogue, important sound effects and short visual descriptions.

YouTube captions

• Create a dialogue only transcript;• Use YouTube's Autocaps to create captions.

Brand identity

• Make it easy to identify your brand, and create trust through brand recognition;

• Avoid busy background patterns, and choose colour schemes with good contrast that represent your brand.

Multi channel

• Communicate through different channels, and over different social networks;• Provide information in different formats, and in

different ways.

Thank you!

Any questions? 

Léonie Watson - Director of Accessibility, NomensaPhone: +44 (0)117 929 7333

Web: www.nomensa.com

Twitter: @LeonieWatson @we_are_Nomensa

Acknowledgement

Thank you to Denis Boudreau of AccessibilitéWeb for initial thoughts and inspiration

@dboudreauhttp://accessibiliteweb.com