Addressing the Accessibility of Social Media

A workshop at CSCW 2019 on Sunday, November 10 in Austin, Texas.

Social media is ubiquitous. Let’s make it accessible!

Abstract

Social media platforms are deeply ingrained in society, and they offer many different spaces for people to engage with others. Unfortunately, accessibility barriers prevent people with disabilities from fully participating in these spaces. Social media users commonly post inaccessible media, including videos without captions (which are important for people who are deaf or hard of hearing) and images without alternative text (descriptions read aloud by screen readers for people who are blind). Users with motor impairments must find workarounds to deal with the complex user interfaces of these platforms, and users with cognitive disabilities may face barriers to composing and sharing information.

We invite accessibility researchers, industry practitioners, and end-users with disabilities to come together at the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work conference (CSCW 2019) to outline challenges and solutions for improving social media accessibility. This workshop will forge collaborations between researchers and practitioners, and define high-priority accessibility challenges for social media platforms. A brief overview of the workshop and how to attend are below.