Paper Type
Completed Research Paper
Abstract
About 300 million blind people in the world cannot use social networking to communicate, collaborate and enhance their professional relationships due to accessibility and usability barriers. The scant research on blind social networking explains these barriers result from the visuo-centric design of Web 2.0 technologies. While research recognizes social media interaction as problematic with assistive technologies, it does not provide answers to critical questions like - where, how and why blind users face challenges in using social media? We conducted an exploratory field study to understand where, how and why blind users face challenges in social media interaction. We employed think-aloud observations and verbal protocol analysis to present a contextually-situated and experiential understanding of blind users' accessibility and usability problems in social media. Our findings illustrate the nature of blind users’ problems and identify problematic design elements, and the character of design problems. These findings have implications for research on blind empowerment, human-computer interactions, and improving the accessibility and usability of social media for all users.
Recommended Citation
Babu, Rakesh and Singh, Rahul, "Accessibility and Usability of Social Media: Convergence between Blind Users and Design Standards" (2013). AMCIS 2013 Proceedings. 7.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2013/SocialTechnicalIssues/GeneralPresentations/7
Accessibility and Usability of Social Media: Convergence between Blind Users and Design Standards
About 300 million blind people in the world cannot use social networking to communicate, collaborate and enhance their professional relationships due to accessibility and usability barriers. The scant research on blind social networking explains these barriers result from the visuo-centric design of Web 2.0 technologies. While research recognizes social media interaction as problematic with assistive technologies, it does not provide answers to critical questions like - where, how and why blind users face challenges in using social media? We conducted an exploratory field study to understand where, how and why blind users face challenges in social media interaction. We employed think-aloud observations and verbal protocol analysis to present a contextually-situated and experiential understanding of blind users' accessibility and usability problems in social media. Our findings illustrate the nature of blind users’ problems and identify problematic design elements, and the character of design problems. These findings have implications for research on blind empowerment, human-computer interactions, and improving the accessibility and usability of social media for all users.