Social Networks Website Accessibility for People with Visual Disability: An Experimental Study

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Business Information Systems Department Arab Academy for Science Technology and Maritime Transport Alexandria Egypt

2 Business Information Systems department Arab Academy for Science &Technology Alexandria Egypt

Abstract

Social networks’ accessibility is vital for full participation in the society; especially for people with disability. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to investigate how is Facebook accessible to people with visual disability and the impact of enhancing Facebook accessibility on their usage. In order to understand the research problem, an experimental method was utilised, where fifty pretest questionnaires were distributed over visually impaired respondents to select suitable candidates for the experiment. Fifteen respondents were found to be experts in using computers, Internet, social networks, and assistive technologies, and have completed the experiment on Facebook to identify accessibility problems. After that, a posttest questionnaire was conducted to investigate the impact of enhancing Facebook accessibility on the usage of people with visual disability.The research results show that some features of the Facebook website are inaccessible for people with visual disability, while other features are semi accessible. The research concludes that people with visual disability have received insignificant attention regarding these problems. Finally, the research suggests a list of recommendations for Facebook in order to be more accessible. To sum up, this paper is one of few studies that brings the topic of web accessibility by disabled people into the era where social networks is the way out of the digital divide. This makes it a thorough investigation that helps social networks make better informed decisions. Hence, the originality of this article lies in its focus on accessible social networks.

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