how companies engage customers around accessibility on social media
DESCRIPTION
Presentation for my ASSETS 2014 talk. Full paper here: http://www.cs.rochester.edu/hci/pubs/pdfs/companies-consumers.pdfTRANSCRIPT
How Companies Engage CustomersAround Accessibility
on Social Media
Erin BradyUniversity of Rochester
Jeffrey P. BighamCarnegie Mellon University
Why did we do this research?
•We believe the internet, and specifically social media, is a power platform to accomplish things
•Users and corporations can connect in new ways
•Initial exploration into how these connections are currently taking place and can evolve
Related Work
•Webmasters may support accessibility, but not know how to find or fix problems
•Twitter can be a useful way for organizations or brands to gauge customer sentiments
Summary
•Examination of online corporate accessibility
•Twitter use patterns of 6 accessibility teams▫Tweets from the team▫Tweets to the team▫Interactions with Twitter users
Limitations
•Corporations ≠ people•Not a proportional representation
▫Sample is small
F. Morstatter, J. Pfeffer, H. Liu, and K. M. Carley. Is the sample good enough? comparing data from twitter’s streaming api with twitter’s firehose. Proceedings of ICWSM, 2013.
Corporate Accessibility•Sample: Alexa Top 50 Companies•Examined static & interactive accessibility
markers•Methodology:
▫Standard search engine for each companies’ name & a combination of accessibility-specific search terms
▫Manually browsed each site, searched the help pages
▫Search on social media platforms
Static Markers
•Accessibility policies▫8 individual, with 3 other related
companies•Webpages or Blogs
▫12 had webpages▫2 had accessibility-specific blogs
Static Markers
•Accessibility policies▫8 individual, with 3 other related
companies•Webpages or Blogs
▫12 had webpages▫2 had accessibility-specific blogs or posts
Interactive Markers•Customer service:
▫48% of the companies had some customer service
▫7 had specific venues for accessibility feedback•Contact information:
▫4 had a specific email address for accessibility▫5 had specific phone numbers/TTY contact
•Social network sites:▫6 teams had Twitter accounts▫3 on Facebook
Why Twitter?
•Twitter is seen as a platform that brings people, organizations, celebrities together
•Public by default•Short, text-based interactions
Platform Specifics
•140 character tweets•One-way follow relationships•Three types of tweets:
▫Public tweets, broadcasted to all followers▫@-messages (sent to a specific user)▫Private messages (not analyzed)
•#Hashtags to group similar content•Retweets shares content to your followers
Platform Specifics
•140 character tweets•One-way follow relationships•Three types of tweets:
▫Public tweets, broadcasted to all followers▫@-messages (sent to a specific user)▫Private messages (not analyzed)
•#Hashtags to group similar content•Retweets to share content to your
followers
Six Corporate TeamsTwitter
@a11yteam
Facebook @fbaccess
Microsoft @msftenable
Google @googleaccess
Paypal @paypalinclusive
Wordpress @wpaccessibility
Behavioral Analysis
•Activity•Use of platform features (links, hashtags)•Engagement with other users•Dialogic features
Lovejoy et al.
Kent et al.
K. Lovejoy, R. D. Waters, and G. D. Saxton. Engaging stakeholders through twitter: How nonprofit organizations are getting more out of 140
characters or less. PublicRelations Review, 38(2):313–318, 2012.
M. L. Kent and M. Taylor. Building dialogic relationships through the world wide web. Public relations review, 24(3):321–334, 1998.
Content Analysis• Promotional tweets
▫Draw awareness to the accessibility team• Questions and criticisms
▫Asked for more details about accessibility efforts▫Criticized a perceived lack of accessibility in
products• Responses
▫Addressing questions or criticisms addressed• Conversational tweets
▫Structural features of the Twitter platform ▫Tweets with little informational content
Content Analysis• Promotional tweets
▫Draw awareness to the accessibility team• Questions and criticisms
▫Asked for more details about accessibility efforts▫Criticized a perceived lack of accessibility in
products• Responses and answers
▫Addressing questions or criticisms addressed• Conversational tweets
▫Structural features of the Twitter platform ▫Tweets with little informational content
Accessibility Teams•184 tweets in April 2014•4/6 teams were active (3+ tweets/week)
▫1 team never tweeted at all•Most were public messages•All used platform features (links and
hashtags)•Engagement:
▫Average 4881 followers, 85 users followed▫Retweet and mention behaviors varied greatly
•Dialogic prompts were rare
Dialogic Prompt
Accessibility Teams
•Performed on a sample of 108 tweets•Majority were promotional (66%)•Responses (29%) were mostly simple how-
tos
Accessibility Teams
•Actively engaged in the platform. •Accounts may be perceived more as
promotional than personal•Hyperlinks and hashtags in public
messages indicate a desire to reach out and connect
•Low follow counts, but actively retweeting and mentioning
•Are using platform to help users
Users and Accessibility Teams
•121 tweets sent during April 2014•Less public messages:
▫average ratio of 1.2x public tweets to @-messages
•Limited hashtags, more hyperlinks
Users and Accessibility Teams
•Many were promotional (52%)▫sharing interesting accessible products,
articles
•Questions and criticisms (15%)
Here's a new online build tool for accessibility fixes http://accessifywiki.appspot.com/site/build.html?q|Fix:Google_search … Powered by Closure Compiler, thanks Google! @googleaccess
So, what’s the gist of Windows 8.1 update 1 on phones? Does it have a screen reader or not? CC @MSFTEnable
Really disappointed with Google. They removed custom user styles from Chrome and removed inverted rendering in Android KitKat. @googleaccess
Conversations
•60 interactions (10 most recent for each team)
•Almost all initiated by user (54/60)•Personal (2 or 3 participants)•Short (average 3.47 messages exchanged)•Tweets mostly questions (80%), responses
(68%)•Most (54/60) remained coherent
Discussion
•The platform affords interactions, but they are not happening frequently
•Corporations can get benefits from participating, interacting with users
•Can leverage as a way to learn about issues
•Use this analysis to find & route other questions
Discussion
•Twitter provides a valuable mechanism for collecting user feedback and gauging opinions
•However, this feedback needs to be paid attention to (and directed to the right people) to be useful