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Everyday inclusive Web
design: an activity perspective
CS575
MADHAVI L NIDAMARTHY
Topics
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Introduction
Design Activity Models
System designers & end-users Interaction
Results
Conclusion
Introduction
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The democratization of information publication,
organization impact on the ability of everyday
people to act as writers, artists and designers.
Users are taking on the role of creators and
publishers as part of their daily activities on the Web.
End-user designers who participate actively and
creatively in personally meaningful activities.
Contd..
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Web authoring tools have evolved toward more
complex and collaborative forms.
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Ex: Weblogging platforms and collaborative tools
such as Wikipedia.
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'Social Web' applications such as YouTube and Flickr
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Users of the social networking site MySpace create
personal profiles, share photos and videos and
participate in online discussion groups.
Users of the video-sharing site YouTube watched
over 100 million videos and uploaded over 65,000
videos a day.
Contd..
Survey by the Pew Internet &
American Life Project - more than
35% of US Internet users have
published some material on the Web.
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Americans with Disabilities Act requires that all structures
created for public use provide reasonable access for
individuals with disabilities.
Guidelines or rules reflect society's commitments to
environmental protection, honest reporting and equal
opportunity.
Impact of end-user designers on the quality of information
on the Web, focusing on the accessibility of Web content
for users with disabilities ?
Content produced without consideration of disabled users
may prevent some users from accessing this content.
Background: everyday inclusive Web design
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End-user design considers ordinary users as active
participants in the design of collaborative systems.
The notion of everyday inclusive Web design is used to
describe end-user design activities that produce artifacts
that are accessible to users with a wide range of skills and
abilities.
Analysis suggests design changes to end-user design tools
that may increase awareness of Web accessibility and
promote accessible Web design practices for all types of
Web content.
End users as designers
The consumer/design spectrum
User roles in terms of their ability to influence the system design
Meta-design consists of 'activities, processes and objectives to create
new media and environments that allow users to act as designers and be
creative.
Web 2.0 applications - The ability of users to
participate as designers
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applications are based upon the collective
participation of a large number of active users;
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control over the system is shared between system
developers and community participants;
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users are able to design personal profiles and
spaces and to engage in social relationships within
the system;
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applications provide rich user interfaces that allow
users easily to manipulate text and media;
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applications are entirely Web-based and are
updated frequently by the developers.
Web Accessibility and inclusive design
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Web accessibility refers to the degree to which a
Website may be accessed by people with varying
abilities.
Access to the Web can affect disabilities, including
sensory impairments such as blindness and
deafness, impairments to cognitive and reading
ability.
Ex: limited visual ability users. These user may use
assistive technology such as a screen reader that
can read the page text out loud.
Contd..
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Fangs - the screen reader emulator, is a Fire fox
browser plug-in, which reads Web pages, allowing
developers to identify problems that might be
encountered by screen reader users.
How can we encourage end-user designers to create
content - accessible to users with disabilities ?
Designers of social Web applications may include
accessibility features in their authoring tools.
No guarantee that these features are used correctly
System designers
Activity system of a social software system designer
Contd..
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Basic framework for the site is produced by a skilled
system designer using professional-grade
programming tools.
Involves the development of Web application
software and development of the associated user
community.
Some designers may practice inclusive design and
may use tools such as Watchfire web tools
and Fangs to verify the accessibility of their
creations.
http://www.virtualhosting.com/blog/2008/test-me25-freebie-website-accessibility-checkers/
End-users
Activity system of an end-user
Contd..
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End-user designers are the users of the social Web
applications created by system designers.
Users are participants in social networking sites,
blogging communities and media sharing sites.
End-users do not typically have access to the Web
application's source code, but may instead use tools
produced by the system designer.
Individuals with disabilities may use assistive
technology such as screen readers when browsing
the Web.
Co-construction of site content
Site content as shared outcome of system designer and end-user activity
System designers may focus on the development of the overall
application,
end-users focus on using the system to express themselves and interact
with others.
Accessible design practices
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End-users require access to design tools that
support accessible design practices, while system
designers must instruct end-users about available
accessibility features.
Ex: Flickr provide a mechanism for users to add text
descriptions to their photos.
Some users have included descriptions, others have
not.
Users browsing the Web without image support will
be able to gain information from the images with
descriptions, but not from those without descriptions
Role ambiguity of end-user designers
Contradiction between personal expression and publishing objectives in
end-user design activity
Users with disabilities are not visible within the
system
Contradiction between perceived and actual number of system users
with disabilities leads to inaccessible design
Existing accessibility tools do not
support design-in-use
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Mismatch between the evaluation tool and actual
practice may have two main effects:
Existing accessibility tools may not be usable by
end-user designers with limited technical
knowledge.
Accessibility tools used by professionals do not
accommodate design-in-use performed by endusers.
Supporting everyday inclusive Web
design through tools
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Embed accessibility in end-user design tools
Approach: page quality indicator. Ex: Footprints
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Empower users to identify and report accessibility
issues. Approach: Encourage users to report
accessibility issues as they are encountered.
Support accessibility evaluation at multiple levels of
activity
How People with Disabilities Use the
Web
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online shopper with color blindness (user control of
style sheets)
online student who is deaf (captioned audio portions
of multimedia files) – enabling synchronized
captioning of audio and description of video.
accountant with blindness (appropriate markup of
tables, alternative text, Tabbing through structural
elements, synchronization of visual, speech output,
and braille display)
http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/PWD-UseWeb/Overview.html
Conclusion
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Everyday inclusive Web design follow accessible
design practices by ordinary users to ensure the
accessibility of their own creative work.
Universal accessibility of social Web applications
cooperative work between end-users and the
designers
Accessibility be recognized and addressed by Web
developers, users and accessibility advocacy
organizations.
Thank You