Prosumers And Accessibility Slideshare Friendly

Prosumers and Accessibility

How to ensure a productive interaction

Yod Samuel Martín GarcíaBeatriz San Miguel GonzálezJuan Carlos Yelmo García

DIT-UPM Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

User-Generated Content today

• Youtube, MySpace, Wikipedia, Facebook, Blogger, Orkut, Ebay, Hi5, Photobucket, Vkontakte, Imageshack, Wordpress, Flickr, Friendster, Skyrock, Adultfriendfinder, Odnoklassniki.ru, Craigslist, Dailymotion, Taobao, Livejournal, Fotolog, Mixi, Nicovideo, 56.com, Veoh, Perfspot, DeviantArt, Youku, Metroflog, Wretch.cc, …

• 40 sites in the top 100 have UGC (User Generated Content) at their core

• What about its accessibility?

UGC and accessibility

• Regarding accessibility, UGC creators lack:– Background– Training– Funding– Awareness– Accountability

• Then… how can we ensure a productive interaction?– Short answer: follow xxAG– Long answer:

• Techniques, policies and strategies• What is being done out there?

(also known as secondary research on best practices)

Components of web accessibility

• On one hand, content producers create contents using authoring tools and evaluation tools.

• On the other hand, content consumers, in turn, consume those contents through user agents and assistive technologies.

• Different guidelines apply to the different elements involved (ATAG to the authoring and evaluation tools, WCAG to the contents and UAAG to the user agents and assistive technologies).

[This slide is based on material from WAI]

Components of web accessibility (II)

• In an UGC-scenario, this changes, since the content producers and the content consumers merge into the new role of the prosumer. In this scenario, we find many prosumers that both produce and consume the contents.

Techniques for the accessibility of UGC

• Platform-driven

• Creator-dependent

• Community-aided

Constrain what the prosumers may generate

• When producing contents, prosumers employ authoring tools that are embedded in the server, in a Content Management System (CMS).

• Contents can only be uploaded through the tools the CMS provides. The CMS bars users from directly uploading the content.

• Crucial influence of authoring tools• Final code is generated by the CMS:

– Rich-text editors (WYSIWYM preferred)– Proprietary markups

• Hinder accessibility-hazardous techniques

Provide accessible standard objects

• The CMS may provide a set of standard objects to be reused within the content.

• These standard objects may have been in turn created by the community.

• The standard objects get known by the creators through publicizing mechanisms.

• Standard objects are reused by creators:– Templates– Widgets

• They may provide accessible contents, structure, style and behaviour

• Mechanisms to publicize the accessibility of a template may have a positive effect

Provide the prosumers with prompts and suggestions

• The CMS may provide information to the producer.

• Prompts and suggestions provided during the authoring process

• Suggested code to be embedded at third-party sites

Let users (sometimes) control the generated code

• The creator may have also used an external editor to create the contents.

• This editor may have been indeed provided by the community.

• Use when suitable:– Let creators do what the CMS cannot do by

itself

• Ad-hoc, specialized external editors

Partial remedies

• When some element in the creation chain (content, authoring tool, creator) is broken, a diversion must be used.

• Reason out textual alternatives from context

• Offer open-loop alternatives

Add accessibility through moderation

• Other community members may moderate the content and decorate them with accessibility characteristics.

• Suggested by WCAG 2.0 as an alternative to partial conformity

• Not cost-prohibitive when leveraging on the community– Most inner sphere of the community

Social accessibility

• The community may separately create the accessibility characteristics of a content and upload them on a different server.

• Then, the content consumer may access a mashup of both the original content and the accessibility characteristics.

• Communal resource creation• Accessible solutions may come up from

other sites

Repair tools

• The community may create repair tools that transform the content before having it served to the consumer.

• (user-generated) server-side reparation bots

• (user-generated) repairing clients

Help and training

• The CMS may include help and training information, which may have been provided by the community.

• Not only the content producer may obtain that help and training, but he or she may also interact with the community in the process of defining the training materials.

• Reputable actors tend to be mimicked• Best practices and tricks quickly spread• Contributions to traditional help mechanisms

– Documentation– Tutorials– Guides

Conclusion: the role of the community for accessible UGC

• Templates (structure, content, style & behaviour)• Widgets & services• Editors & authoring tools• Moderation & mash-ups: textual alternatives and

other accessibility improvements• Accessibility-repairing tools• Help and training• Best practices and experience

Thank you

[email protected]