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

Thanks for listening!

Erin Bradybrady@cs.rochester.edu

@erinleebrady

Jeffrey P. Bighamjbigham@cmu.edu

@jeffbigham