Facebook and JAWS

Facebook is one of the giants of social networking. I spent a happy half hour or so attempting not to look at my computer screen and instead listen to the delightful sounds of "Daniel" (he's my favourite voice, not unlike Cary Grant, if he'd been a computer) telling me what I was navigating through. It's interesting not being able to see it and have to rely on other senses instead and it threw up some interesting points:

1. There's an awful lot of tables in Facebook. All those different boxes on the page with friend information, the Wall, the feed list, they're all tables. I'm not terribly au fait with accessing tables with JAWS, but it got quite annoying (I have my verbosity settings high) after a while.



2. I am not a number!! There is, as some of you may be aware, nothing in the way of alt text for the pictures, instead it reads as a very long number. In effect you get a link to a person's profile through the picture, but you don't know who the person is because it's just a number....



3. There's lots in the way of duplicate links on the page, because of the links on the feed, the Wall and Friends list. Hitting Ins+F7 gives a very very very long list indeed (often with many many numbers!)!



4. When I put JAWS in "Say All" mode, it read from left to right across the page from the applications links, skipping out the picture in the middle to read the personal information. On a friend's page this made for very strange reading - going from "Events" to hearing what their religious convictions were!
   

I'm a novice JAWS user and maybe regular users would navigate round it quicker. On the other hand, not all assistive technology users are expert (think about how many people don't know how to use Word correctly but use it every day!) but most websites are easier to navigate because they are less dynamic and tend to have a more linear structure (if they're written correctly!). It wasn't impossible to navigate around the page, but it was quirky.

There's a lot to be said for social networking. I make use of it and I certainly do not wish to halt its progress, but I would like to see it easier to use for those who rely on assistive technology.

There are a some accessibility groups on F'book who are trying to improve the situation:

• The Official Pettition for a more accessible Facebook



• Accessible Web Developers

There are various other reports:

• State of the eNation report on social networking - which points out various accessibility issues.


• AFB Report on CAPTCHA images in social networking sites

The BBC's accessibility blog had an interesting point to make "we all need to consider ourselves as TAB (Temporarily Able Bodied) and then design accordingly. " It's good practice and I'd highly recommend any web developers to have some basic knowledge of screenreaders and take the time to hear how a website or application "sounds".

User friendliness and screenreaders

Anyone creating online information in the form of a web page will run it through an HTML/XHTML/XML/CSS validator, the most ubiquitous being the W3C Validator (I've used it too!) or Bobby (which seems to have been taken over by IBM and is no longer publicly available).

It's a great idea to make sure that the information can be read by those who use assistive technology (although I worry that those XHTML Valid buttons seem to have taken over as a way of saying "Look at me, I'm accessible", when the website looks as if it's been written by Jackson Pollock and anything but "accessible" ... I'll rant about "accessibility" another time).

Can the same be said for Web 2.0 applications? How well do they work with screenreaders? I thought I'd take my knowledge of using JAWS and put it to the test. I'm not visually impaired, but I have had conversations with a JAWS user who spends a lot of time online. She also assured me that she'd never had any trouble using (or buying from!) amazon.co.uk - I'd heard it was something of an accessibility nightmare.

So, where to start. I thought I'd take some Web 2.0 applications and see what I can come up with using JAWS (I'll also trawl around the web to see if anyone else has some info on these). Here's my basic list to start with:

1. Facebook (it'll give me an excuse to play with it at work!)
2. Librarything.com - see above for excuse!
3. Del.icio.us - not too enamoured of this, but it could be useful

So I'll let you know how I get on.

Web2.0 - PM Workshop Feedback

Facebook - discussion groups:

1. Students for library presence F'book
2. Students against library presence on F'book
3. Librarians for library presence on F'book
4. Librarians against library presence on F'book

Group 1:

• On F'book all time - wouldn't have to go anywhere else to get to library information
• Library pages on F'book look better
• More informal and user friendly
• Information through updates in your inbox - takes pain out of finding info
• Garner support to get changes to fines, opening hours

Group 2:

• SALF - William Hague wearing a baseball cap - libraries are not fun - fail to see what libs are offering by joining F'book
• Get RSS feed off website
• Changes to fines through F'book - but needs to happen through spirit of the masses
• Keep work and social activities separate - policing through F'book not good
• Bad fit between social use of site and professional personas coming onsite

MR - libraries ARE fun!

Inequality between power of individuals and power of any organisation - much more resources than individual - power inequality

Policing through proctors - worry that people will go elsewhere

Libraries will get onto F'book and people will go elsewhere

Are there other things we should be doing? Improving catalogue?

Group 3:

• Communication - being able to ask people for fines??
• Being where your users are
• Being able to talk to users in space they use
• Get to know who your users are - fans - are they on holiday so can't pay their fines??
• Information being more open - informal when people post queries
• Marketing - making more visible - making the Bod less scary - making librarians less scary :)

Not overwhelmingly compelling??

Best arguement is getting know your users - could do this by focus groups?? Decision makers should sit on the desk (and be trained first!) to get to know users!

Users aren't thinking what's in it for me - it's another way of getting info out

Group 4:

• Devalues the organisation - F'book is social network, about meeting up for coffee not discussing what library books they are borrowing!
• Advertising on F'book - some may be inappropriate
• Small libraries with small number of PCs may not want to have them used up with F'book
• Content - not dependable? Only person who has put info up
• What is wrong with a good library website? RSS Feeds, Library Catalogue

Less appropriate for academic libraries to be on F'book? BL is on there - is aiming to get people in from all walks of life!

Conclusions:

Is it such a bad idea?? For Staff Development - RSS Feeds, Pics of conferences, comments

But..... only members can access the information

Concern over privacy and caching from Google

Emma Huber - is this something to lose if we're invading social space? Bookswap will keep going.

From institutional perspective it's a billboard - telling people what is on - this is not an invasion of space BUT it would be an invasion of space if libraries think they will become friends with the users - users will ignore us:

Are we taking it all too seriously - it's a space you can ignore things! Shouldn't be so concerned about infringing about peoples rights.

Go back and bring social into everything we do? Look at catalogues and make everything we do more accessible.

Web2.0 is not just the technology it's an attitude!