Social Networking — Not For Everyone?
AbilityNet’s latest State of the eNation Report focuses on social networking websites which, the report claims, are locking out disabled users.
Sites such as Bebo, Facebook, and MySpace have revolutionised online communication but millions of disabled people may not even be able to register - let alone participate - in the online communities that these sites offer. Yet disabled users may have the most to gain from social networking as, currently, they include some of the most socially excluded members of our communities.
One of the major accessibility stumbling blocks that AbilityNet’s review highlighted was the use of visual CAPTCHA challenges as part of the account registration process. CAPTCHAs are known to cause all sorts of user problems - and not just for the disabled either - yet some sites persist in using them. A couple of the sites reviewed did attempt to offer alternative CAPTCHAs for disabled users but, in practice, these were also found to be unusable.
And it gets worse…
Even if disabled users can manage to sign-up for an account, they are likely to find a whole new batch of accessibility barriers on the other side. Highlighted problems included:
- No accessibility page.
- A lack of skip links and poor support for keyboard navigators generally.
- Navigational graphics that lacked alternative text attributes.
- Poor link text.
- Poor typography.
- No alternatives for site facilities that relied upon JavaScript.
And the list goes on…
The end result was that many site facilities were completely inaccessible to some user groups. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that these are many of the same issues that we’ve been trying to highlight over the past two years!
AbilityNet also noted that, although the sites reviewed allowed users to upload videos, none of them mentioned the importance of captions (or subtitles), and only one site, out of the five examined, gave users the option of adding a transcript to a video.
AbilityNet are calling on these sites to look at some of the key factors governing disabled access - especially a reduction in the use of CAPTCHAs and the provision of user-friendly support for those experiencing access problems. That’s a call to action that we’re only too happy to support.
Shane Holland responds:
Posted: January 28th, 2008 at 11:40 am →
Well put, Mel. I really agree that there seems to be a lack of attention to the fine accessibility details that major sites like these should be addressing. Most importantly, as you talked about, IMHO, is the CAPTCHAs. I don’t understand why they cannot move towards a more accessible method, like a simple human verification question or even a honeypot method.
I thought CAPTCHAs were a thing of the past…I guess I was wrong. Nice job Facebook! (even though I have an account with you…) :-/
Social Networking Accessibility - Curb Cut responds:
Posted: January 29th, 2008 at 2:36 am →
[…] Via Accesssites.org, a summary of a 21 page report on the accessibility of social networks from AbilityNet. The report analyzes Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Yahoo and Bebo and reports that they all stink. Of those 5 sites, Yahoo was the only was to receive a two-star rating- that’s two starts out of five. The other four all received one star indicating they are ‘very inaccessible’. […]
Mike Cherim responds:
Posted: January 29th, 2008 at 9:03 am →
It’s sort of ironic that there’s an “Accessible Web Developers” group on both Facebook and Ma.gnolia (which isn’t very accessible either), but the purpose of course is none other than introducing the term and all it entails to a ever broader segment of the Internet population. Hopefully it’s somewhat effective, even though the soap box is badly warped.
Mel Pedley responds:
Posted: January 30th, 2008 at 7:34 am →
The report’s author, Kath Moonan, and some of the respondents to the Social Networking website survey were interviewed on the BBC Radio 4’s “In Touch” program on 29th January. The interview will be available in audio format until 5th February on the BBC’s web site. An associated factsheet and transcript of the interview should be available until May 2008.
Jermayn Parker responds:
Posted: January 30th, 2008 at 7:52 pm →
Are they really missing out on anything though