1. Prosumers and Accessibility
How to ensure
a productive interaction
Yod Samuel Martín García
Beatriz San Miguel González
Juan Carlos Yelmo García
DIT-UPM Universidad Politécnica de Madrid

2. User-Generated Content today
• Youtube, MySpace, Wikipedia, Facebook,
Blogger, Orkut, Ebay, Hi5, Photobucket,
Vkontakte, Imageshack, Wordpress, Flickr,
Friendster, Skyrock, Adultfriendfinder,
Odnoklassniki.ru, Craigslist, Dailymotion,
Taobao, Livejournal, Fotolog, Mixi, Nicovideo,
56.com, Veoh, Perfspot, DeviantArt, Youku,
Metroflog, Wretch.cc, …
• 40 sites in the top 100 have UGC (User
Generated Content) at their core
• What about its accessibility?

3. UGC and accessibility
• Regarding accessibility, UGC creators lack:
– Background
– Training
– Funding
– Awareness
– Accountability
• Then… how can we ensure a productive interaction?
– Short answer: follow xxAG
– Long answer:
• Techniques, policies and strategies
• What is being done out there?
(also known as secondary research on best practices)

4. Components of web accessibility
• On one hand, content producers create contents
using authoring tools and evaluation tools.
• On the other hand, content consumers, in turn,
consume those contents through user agents
and assistive technologies.
• Different guidelines apply to the different
elements involved (ATAG to the authoring and
evaluation tools, WCAG to the contents and
UAAG to the user agents and assistive
technologies).
[This slide is based on material from WAI]

5. Components of web accessibility
(II)
• In an UGC-scenario, this changes, since
the content producers and the content
consumers merge into the new role of the
prosumer. In this scenario, we find many
prosumers that both produce and
consume the contents.

6. Techniques for the accessibility of
UGC
• Platform-driven
• Creator-dependent
• Community-aided

7. Constrain what the prosumers may
generate
• When producing contents, prosumers employ
authoring tools that are embedded in the server,
in a Content Management System (CMS).
• Contents can only be uploaded through the tools
the CMS provides. The CMS bars users from
directly uploading the content.
• Crucial influence of authoring tools
• Final code is generated by the CMS:
– Rich-text editors (WYSIWYM preferred)
– Proprietary markups
• Hinder accessibility-hazardous techniques

8. Provide accessible standard
objects
• The CMS may provide a set of standard objects to be
reused within the content.
• These standard objects may have been in turn created
by the community.
• The standard objects get known by the creators through
publicizing mechanisms.
• Standard objects are reused by creators:
– Templates
– Widgets
• They may provide accessible contents, structure, style
and behaviour
• Mechanisms to publicize the accessibility of a template
may have a positive effect

9. Provide the prosumers with
prompts and suggestions
• The CMS may provide information to the
producer.
• Prompts and suggestions provided during
the authoring process
• Suggested code to be embedded at third-
party sites

10. Let users (sometimes) control the
generated code
• The creator may have also used an
external editor to create the contents.
• This editor may have been indeed
provided by the community.
• Use when suitable:
– Let creators do what the CMS cannot do by
itself
• Ad-hoc, specialized external editors

11. Partial remedies
• When some element in the creation chain
(content, authoring tool, creator) is broken,
a diversion must be used.
• Reason out textual alternatives from
context
• Offer open-loop alternatives

12. Add accessibility through
moderation
• Other community members may moderate
the content and decorate them with
accessibility characteristics.
• Suggested by WCAG 2.0 as an alternative
to partial conformity
• Not cost-prohibitive when leveraging on
the community
– Most inner sphere of the community

13. Social accessibility
• The community may separately create the
accessibility characteristics of a content
and upload them on a different server.
• Then, the content consumer may access a
mashup of both the original content and
the accessibility characteristics.
• Communal resource creation
• Accessible solutions may come up from
other sites

14. Repair tools
• The community may create repair tools
that transform the content before having it
served to the consumer.
• (user-generated) server-side reparation
bots
• (user-generated) repairing clients

15. Help and training
• The CMS may include help and training information,
which may have been provided by the community.
• Not only the content producer may obtain that help and
training, but he or she may also interact with the
community in the process of defining the training
materials.
• Reputable actors tend to be mimicked
• Best practices and tricks quickly spread
• Contributions to traditional help mechanisms
– Documentation
– Tutorials
– Guides

16. Conclusion: the role of the
community for accessible UGC
• Templates (structure, content, style & behaviour)
• Widgets & services
• Editors & authoring tools
• Moderation & mash-ups: textual alternatives and
other accessibility improvements
• Accessibility-repairing tools
• Help and training
• Best practices and experience

17. Thank you
samuelm@dit.upm.es