Another question asked in the Q&A section of LinkedIn. My response:

Disclaimer: I am assuming here you’re talking about a destination site like facebook or myspace, rather that a service like twitter.

There are some rudimentary features that help contribute to the overall success of a social networking site. Obviously, #1 is the ease of social interaction. This involves:
- How can people find and make connections within the site?
- How can people invite people who are not currently members?
- How can people communicate?

Personalization is also a major factor. MySpace users pimp out their pages as a form of self-expression. Facebook held off for awhile, but now they have 9439023829 applications people can add.

Data portability is huge right now as well. If you want your site to be the premiere destination, give users the opportunity to import information from other sites. I already have established services for blogging, microblogging, etc. Make it easy for me to share my work elsewhere within your space.
On the flip side, make it easy for me to help promote you and what I do in your space. Let me export my activities or have a publicly available URL for my profile so I can use your service to help engage outside of it (and I’ll even help drive traffic to your site! We both win!)

So those are a few basic features I believe a social network site needs to have to best support their user base. Ha, notice I didn’t mention anything specific about content.. I think that’s more specific to the user base.

Written for the RI:Technology Blog

How often have you been asked “so if we don’t use Flash, this will be searchable/accessible, right”? As though there is some new compound word describing a site whose content is easily available to all non-human user agents.

Ah, we should be so lucky! While some coding practices aid in both SEO and web accessibility, there are some fundamental differences between the practices.

One of the most basic differences is the intent. When looking at a web project, it is completely acceptable to prioritize as to which content you want to be indexed for a search engine—for example, a company may not care if their short-lived events data gets indexed. SEO is about attracting traffic to your site. In contrast, web accessibility is about ensuring an individual can use your site once he’s on it.

Up until, oh, two weeks ago, Flash was commonly considered to be unsearchable. A way to ensure the content of the site could still be indexed (and therefore show up in google) was to write the content to the HTML page, and then if the visitor had Flash available, overlay the static text with a richer experience. This worked fine to allow a search engine spider to index the content, however, it didn’t always provide a user of assistive technology a good experience.

There is a common belief that users of assistive technologies don’t or can’t access Flash, so they would get the stripped down, text-only version. This isn’t always the case, they may get the Flash-enabled version, like other human visitors. Well, except their actual experience is significantly different..

For anyone who has never seen a screen reader in action, I highly recommend you check out this Introduction to Screen Readers movie.

Flash has had accessibility properties available to developers since Flash MX, and Adobe Flex provides built-in “accessible components.” However, unlike the recent announcement about .swf indexing not requiring any additional effort on the behalf of developers, creating an accessible .swf experience does require some work. As well, accessibility for .swfs depends on MSAA (Microsoft Active Accessibility), so it is platform dependent. Even a diligent developer will find his hard work is all for naught if his visitor is on a MAC.

As you can see, “searchable” and “accessible” cannot be used interchangeably. While the tactics for each don’t necessarily conflict, there are different goals and different considerations to take into account.

Next Tuesday (July 29th), I will be presenting on Web Accessibility to Columbus Digital - the Central Ohio Adobe Users Group. Starting off the meeting will be a presentation on Usability on the Web.

Announcing this month’s Adobe User Group Presentation Night, hosted by Quest Software!

[Google Calendar Link]

6:10- 7:00: Usability on the Web
Chris Peters, Marketing Director at Quest Software
Chris Peters has been producing websites for almost as long as the Web has existed as a medium. He has been studying usability, accessibility, and human factors avidly since 2000. Chris has doubled paid search conversion rates since beginning his role as Search Marketing Manager for Quest Software, and he leads the open source ColdFusion on Wheels project in his spare time.

7:10- 8:00: Web Accessibility
Andrea Hill, Senior Developer at Resource Interactive
Andrea Hill is a Senior Developer at Resource Interactive, a leading independent interactive agency in Columbus, Ohio. Prior to starting at Resource, Andrea worked in the User Experience group at LexisNexis, coding prototypes for usability testing and serving as the company’s key accessibility contact. Andrea’s background in user-centered design has fueled her interest in usability and accessibility, and her experience as a front-end developer has provided her with the technical background to see how it all fits together. She recently graduated with a Master in Computer Science degree from Franklin University, where her research focus was on RIA Accessibility.

8:00: SOFTWARE RAFFLE
It’s time for our 6-Month software raffle. Come on by for $2000 worth of Adobe Software!

Directions
Take 270 to Tuttle Crossing Blvd. Turn West on Tuttle Crossing Blvd. Shortly after is Emerald Parkway, turn right. 6500 Emerald Parkway is on your right. Plenty of parking.

(totally stolen from the Columbus Digital site.)

Until only a few years ago, I would have stated that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) had nothing to do with web accessibility. However, the landmark case against Target has altered the landscape.

Part 36 of the ADA refers to “nondiscrimination on the basis of disability by public accommodations and in commercial facilities”. A quick look at the published “standards for accessible design” makes the intended focus of this law clear: the document is entitled “ADA Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities”, and calls out the need for ramps and wide aisles.

As a result, web developers haven’t worried too much about the applicability of the ADA. The lawsuit raised against Target in 2006 changed all that, however.

It was deemed that ADA applied due to the cross-channel integration of the online and in-person experience. It was services like “buy online, pick up in-store” that put Target at risk—users of assistive technologies could not take advantage of this service.

A very significant consideration is that unlike WCAG or Section 508, there are no clear “ADA Web Accessibility Standards” to follow. This is about actually ensuring equal access, not fulfilling a checklist. This makes it arguably a much more daunting initiative.

However, this is not to say that every online retailer or service provider needs to be concerned with such a lawsuit. Rather, it was the blurring line between the online and physical spaces that made them vulnerable. While it would be ideal to optimize the entire online experience for disabled users, at the very least accommodations can be made to ensure that any experiences that extend to the physical location (where accessibility is required) also do so online.

“This doesn’t mean that the ADA applies to all Web sites, but on the other hand, if there’s a bricks-to-clicks type of business and there is some integration of the experience between the two, I think the court is saying that those sites need to comply with the ADA”
- Eric Goldman, assistant professor and director of the High Tech Law Institute at the Santa Clara University School of Law.

WCAG (Wu-CAHG) stands for the “Web Content Authoring Guidelines”, put forth by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). WCAG 1.0 was released as a Recommendation in 1999, and WCAG 2.0 is now in Candidate Recommendation status.

The Section 508 Standards were actually based on WCAG 1.0; Jim Thatcher has a side-by-side comparison of the two on his website.

WCAG lists three levels of compliance. The definition of the levels seems somewhat backwards: by not complying to a certain level, you are barring access to certain groups of individuals:

• Priority 1: one or more groups will find it impossible to access information in the document.
• Priority 2: one or more groups will find it difficult to access information in the document.
• Priority 3: one or more groups may find it difficult to access information in the document.

One of the most important things to know about WCAG is that there is no governing body to enforce compliance. These are guidelines, not laws. That being said, many organizations model their accessibility policy after these guidelines, or will publicly state their commitment to following these guidelines. Even with no external governance, an organization that does not fulfill an stated commitment stands to suffer from negative perception by users.

When WCAG 2.0 was first drafted, it met with much industry critique as being too difficult to understand and too technology-agnostic. It has gone through extensive revision and it now close to being considered a formal recommendation.

The new guidelines offer more quantifiable success measures: whereas the techniques for satisfying WCAG 1.0 stated that there should be “sufficient contrast” between foreground and background colors, WCAG 2.0 techniques explicitly call out color contrast ratios to satisfy.

As in any case, meeting guidelines or standards does not guarantee that a site visitor will have a positive experience or be able to complete his tasks. However, these guidelines can help a site designer or developer identify common areas of difficulty and work to eliminate those.

Anyone who has heard me speak about web accessibility knows that I typically call out two motivating factors behind accessibility: usability and regulatory compliance.
Let’s face it, usability can be a hard sell. But if an organization is being tasked with meeting certain standards/guidelines/laws, there may be no choice. The trick, therefore, is knowing if it applies.

“Section 508″ refers to a section in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (amended in 1998). Its purpose is stated as follows:

The purpose of this part is to implement section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended (29 U.S.C. 794d). Section 508 requires that when Federal agencies develop, procure, maintain, or use electronic and information technology, Federal employees with disabilities have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to the access and use by Federal employees who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency. Section 508 also requires that individuals with disabilities, who are members of the public seeking information or services from a Federal agency, have access to and use of information and data that is comparable to that provided to the public who are not individuals with disabilities, unless an undue burden would be imposed on the agency.

Basically, Federal agencies have an obligation only to use or buy products that are accessible. It is not readily known that this also extends to agencies such as post-secondary institutions that receive federal funding. Organizations that wish to sell to these markets must provide products that meet these standards.

Section 508 refers to all electronic technology, and there are standards for software applications, telecommunication products, and others. When looking at web accessibility, we consider section 1194.22: Web-based intranet and internet information and applications.

When an agency is evaluating products or services, it has the obligation to secure the “most accessible” solution. Yes, this acknowledges that there may be some gaps in compliance. When I attended the Access U Conference last year, the representatives from various colleges were all discussing the relative merits of different CMSes, looking for the “most accessible” solution.

To facilitate the assessment of “most compliant”, organizations will often complete a VPAT - a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template. This template allows an organization to document how they do or do not meet each standard. Filling out this template, even if it means acknowledging shortcomings, gives an organization the opportunity to show what they are doing to commit to accessibility. It also makes an organization eligible to list their products in the BuyAccessible Product and Services Directory, which may be used by agencies to find accessible solutions.

While many organizations are not obligated to comply with Section 508 standards, it may still be a good exercise to be familiar with the standards and the rationale behind them. Many of the standards map directly to the WCAG1.0 Guidelines… oh wait, that’s another post, entirely…!

I don’t tend to rant on here, but I am just incredibly disillusioned by the iPhone pricing model.

In October or November of last year, I switched to AT&T, with a long-term goal to get an iPhone. I established my service plan with them with this firm objective, and was assured that this was feasible.

The pricing model for the new iPhone has been criticized by some: the $199/$399 (and eventual $599) prices seem confusing. Yet I wasn’t concerned as I had confirmed when I started with AT&T that this was my intent.

Just to be sure, however, I logged into my account on wireless.att.com a few days ago to confirm.

You can take advantage of our no-commitment pricing option, with the exception of iPhone which requires a 2-year commitment.This line may be eligible for an equipment discount on 06/25/2009

Fab, confirmation that I could “take advantage” of no-commitment pricing, although I had to commit to another two years. No problem!

So yes, I was one of those suckers who stood in line for hours. I’ll admit, it wasn’t planned, but I got out of work early and didn’t have anything better to do. Got to the front of the line, read the agreements, and then they ran my account. “That’ll be $399…”

So evidently “no-commitment” means absolutely nothing. I still have to commit to two years, AND there is no special price. I am now being penalized for my decision to move to AT&T in advance of this purchase. What’s most disappointing is that I explicitly declared my intentions when I signed up, and although I know the sales people at AT&T weren’t aware of this new pricing, I am now being penalized for it.

I don’t want AT&T service. I wanted that dang phone. I signed up with AT&T months ago to facilitate this whole process. Now I’m being penalized for choosing to enroll in a service before I was actually going to reap the benefits.

I’m incensed at this whole model: alienating your existing consumers to appeal to new users. It would be different if I hadn’t gone out of my way to prepare for this purchase of an iphone, and just happened to be an AT&T customer. But this has always been my intent, and I certainly regret the last 8 months of using their service.

I like to hang out in the LinkedIn Q&A section, and recently someone asked about the relationship between RSS and Feedburner. This is a slightly lengthened version of my response:

RSS refers to the format (more or less standard). Many, many services out there offer an RSS feed. That way you can syndicate your content: people can get it when they want it, rather than having to come to your site to see if there is anything new.

There are two implications to this:
1) metrics: you can’t measure page hits. What’s your traffic like?
2) maintenance. What happens when you change your URL, do you lose your subscribers?

Feedburner helps with both of these issues (and more!) You create a feedburner URL (http://feeds.feedburner.com/afhill) and then can access your metrics via the feedburner site. You can see how many subscribers you have as well as how often they’re acting on the posts they’re reading. You can get some more information about their platform and how they’re accessing your information.

Using feedburner also allows you to dress up your feed a bit more. You can incorporate your del.icio.us bookmarks into the feed that is pushed out, without having them actually show up on your blog, or add in your flickr photos. You can choose to post only content excerpts, and select which means of social sharing you want to enable directly from the feed. Feedburner offers options you likely never even considered! All these options are organized into 5 sections on the feedburner site: Analyze, Optimize, Publicize, Monetize and Troubleshootize. This may seem a bit daunting, but all the features are easily enabled and disabled, so it’s easy to experiment and optimize for your own needs.
I personally use several Wordpress plugins related to analytics (Feedburner Feedsmith, Google Analytics, Wordpress Reports and the Most Active Widget) and Wordpress reports gives me the option to monitor my RSS circulation right from within my Wordpress dashboard. Handy!

Personalization is the idea of tailoring an experience to a specific individual. This is particularly prevalent in e-Commerce. There are a few ways to achieve this.

The ATG e-Commerce platform uses ‘a scenario engine’ to provide personalized content. The engine uses a rules-based system, either based on user attributes or user behaviour. These can be simple (”the user has set her preference to be movies, so we will show her movie-related content”) or incredibly complicated (”in the past week, the user has clicked on at least three movies and at least four television shows, so we will show her randomly served up movie or tv-related content”).

Such rules-based systems are powerful, but they also necessitate a fair amount of planning and development. ATG actually recommends a specific job role dedicated to writing and configuring such rules. So what if you’re not entirely sure what the specific rules you need are?

An alternative that is gaining ground is based on Bayesian probabilistic theory. Don’t worry, there’s no need to actually know the name of it Bayesian theory “us[es] the knowledge of prior events to predict future events.[1]” This is the basis of the Cleverset product recommendation offering (Cleverset has now been purchased by ATG to round out its offering). Bayesian theory is (perhaps unsurprisingly) well-discussed within academic circles. A few example papers include: “Online Recommendation Based on Customer Shopping Model in E-Commerce”, or “Website Morphing”.

Many people have an amazon.com recommendation story: they purchased a baby item once as a gift, and continue to have baby items recommended to them on each visit. A rules-based system such as ATG allows you to set thresholds (you must buy at least three baby items - perhaps even on three different visits - to have baby items recommended). A system that uses Bayesian reasoning basically modifies itself based on your behaviour to predict the likelihood of your buying another baby item.

The above example is based on targeting content to a user, based on activity. When I first came across an article referencing Website Morphing, I was quite intrigued. Rather that focusing on content, Bayesian theory is applied to the cognitive style of the visitor. Whereas our goal for a particular site visit may change, we all have preferred learning styles. How I choose to gather information on a site can dynamically modify how it is presented to me (I am adverse to video tutorials, so I will enjoy a site more if that information is provided differently). According to the MIT Sloan professors that are doing this work, “morphing websites can increase sales 20 percent [2].” I have been in email contact with the author of the paper, and he states that they have continued to try out their system in limited markets, and continue to see the same positive results.

Personalization is one step in providing an optimized user experience. When looking to incorporate personalization into an experience, consideration must be made both as to the specific approach as well as the nature of the personalization (is it content or presentation that is tailored).

[1] What is Bayesian Logic? retrieved July 7, 2008 from http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci548993,00.html
[2] MIT Sloan Professors Find That Morphing Websites Can Increase Sales 20 Percent retrieved July 7, 2008 from http://rismedia.com/wp/2008-05-22/mit-sloan-professors-find-that-morphing-websites-can-increase-sales-20-percent/

Back in May, a colleague pointed me to Groundswell, a new book out by the folks at Forrester. The notion of social technographics resonated with me right away, it was similar to the idea of the motivations of iCitizens, as explored in the book The OPEN Brand by thought leaders at my company, Resource Interactive.

Groundswell was promoted in a very open, accessible way. I subscribed to the blog (with Charlene Li leaving Forrester, it will be interesting to find out where Groundswell news will now live), and learned more about the philosophy via a free webinar. I read about social technographics and POST, and the book landed on my (admittedly lengthy) “to read” list. So when a blog post went out on May 21 offering free copies for blog reviewers, I was quick to respond. At the time, I also made a suggestion to entertain the notion of interviews with authors, as Rohit Bhargava did for “Personality Not Included“. As I went to grab the link to the blog post today, I see that they’d updated the post to thank me for my suggestion and offer up such interviews. I will definitely see if the possibility still exists! I also have to admit that I’m absolutely tickled that they were receptive to my suggestion.

As I mentioned, I was already somewhat informed and very excited about Groundswell even before the book arrived. But unlike many movie trailers these days, the promotion of the book did not “give away all the good stuff”. While I was familiar with some of the broad concepts, the level of detail given to them, as well as the in-depth case studies and additional information made this a valuable read.

According to the authors, “the groundswell is a social trend in which people use technologies to get things from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.” No one can deny that technology is changing how people communicate and get informed, yet it is not always clear what the implications to business are.

Such implications are two-fold: how can an organization adjust to remain relevant to consumers, and how can they actually benefit from this trend?

The book is organized in a straightforward manner: Part 1 - Understanding the Groundswell walks the reader through the “what”, the “how” and the “who”. What this trend is about, what tools are being used, and who’s using them. The important message echoed throughout the book is that it’s necessary to “concentrate on the relationships, not the technologies.” Even as a technologist, I think this is an incredibly important point. It’s not about having a wiki, or a blog. It’s about tapping into the sort of relationship you are trying to foster, and determining the best means to do so. A book about technologies is destined to become outdated: societal shifts happen slightly more slowly This is not to say that the book does not mention specific technologies or services, but it is not the focus.

The chapter on the “who” explores the notion of the social technographics profile, the initial idea that attracted me to the book. Individuals are characterized based on their level of engagement online, although it is acknowledged that “the same person may have different motivations depending on where she’s participating, what day it is and her current mood or objectives.” Forrester has done some great work around characterizing online users, and their profiling tool can help an organization made some broad assumptions about the level of engagement of their users. This can help identify the applicable tactics to be employed, based on what activities your visitors are likely to engage in.

Part 2 - Tapping the Groundswell outlines a four-step planning process for aligning with the Groundswell. POST is the acronym used to refer to the order of the steps: considering People, Objectives, Strategy and lastly Technology. While this trend is characterized by the use of technology, technology is but the enabler, and must be relevant to the people who are to use it.

The book outlines five primary objectives that companies may pursue. These are:

1. Listening
2. Talking
3. Energizing
4. Supporting
5. Embracing

In order to make these objectives seem more concrete and relevant, they are mapped to existing business functions: listening = research, talking = marketing, energizing = sales, support = supporting, development = embracing. This may make it easier for organizations to identify a single objective for their project or initiative, and help frame strategy and technology.

As well, the objective of the initiative can help establish the baselines for measuring success. Two of the case studies illustrated this point. Blue Shirt Nation is an online community for Best Buy employees. The site objective is to listen to employees, and the creators were more than happy when 10% of all Best Buy employees joined. In contrast, the social networking site set up by Organic was created to “re-energize employee collaboration”, and the majority of employees need to use it for it to truly be effective.

The next five chapters of the book go into more detail as to how to leverage technologies to achieve these strategies. There are detailed case studies, and in some cases even some rough numbers outlining the ROI of the activity! The list of companies and case studies are impressive and help legitimize the movement. Not all of the stories are straight-forward ’success stories’, but each shows to highlight how an individuals’ vision and dedication made a difference.

After all, is this not the point of the Groundswell? The significance of an individual to make a difference? An organization may not always be prepared to respond to the suggestions of individuals (internally or externally) but it must be aware of the fact that those discussions are taking place regardless.

Part 3: The Groundswell Transforms attempts to prepare the reader for the implications of embracing these new ways of engaging with the consumer. A major consideration, and one that organizations are not always prepared for, is the notion of giving up control. This is an essential step to truly leverage the power of the Groundswell, but requires a fundamental change throughout the organization.

Another impact to the organization as a whole is the idea of leveraging the tools of the Groundswell inside the company itself. I’ve worked several places that have provided employees with blogs, wikis and forums to generate internal collaboration. It is not enough, however, to simply make the tools available. Often it is felt that leaders must drive the use of these tools, or they will not be widely adopted. If the company’s leadership does not recognize the significance of such relationships or means of engagement, that perception will be perpetuated down the ranks. On the flip-side, however, it is recognized that it’s “nearly impossible to force social technologies on organizations from the top down, because by their definition, these technologies require the participation of [the] employees.” It’s important that everyone in the organization embrace this new way of doing business.

The last chapter, the future of the Groundswell, paints a picture of what the future holds. Again, this is not focused on specific technologies or tools, but rather on how relationships are evolving and how to be prepared for them.

Groundswell is a well-crafted, thoughtful book. The book is not a high-level theoretical tome on how organizations must adapt to this new way of doing business. Rather, it provides guidance, encouragement and plenty of anecdotal evidence to individuals who sense the change, and want to be on the forefront.

I have been talking about Groundswell and social technographics for months now. Recognizing the visitor’s motivations and providing him with tools to satisfy his specific needs really appeals to my background in user experience. Now that I’ve read the book, I feel even more prepared to actually put these practices in place. As a technologist, I know that this stuff isn’t hard to actually build, it is the shift in organizational perspective and acceptance that is the biggest challenge. Thankfully this book has provided plenty of evidence showing the benefits of this shift, and hopefully will help accelerate this evolution in how organizations conduct business.