1. Tooltip for user stats

AT provides a tooltip (title attribute) over the author’s name on every tweet which provides the full user name if available, number of followers and number of friends. In HootSuite, to get this info, you must open the user modal window and wait for an overly abundant amount of information to load.

2. Inline image previews

Accessible Twitter provides icon-sized image previews in tweets with link to TwitPic and YFrog images. And support for more providers is planned. No support in HootSuite.

3. Pagination of user timeline

Unless you create a column for a particular user, HootSuite limits viewing of a user’s tweets to 10. Accessible Twitter provides pagination on a user timeline page, so you can view many more.

4. Viewing Trends

Viewing Twitter trends in AT is easy, click Trends in the main menu. AT provides weekly, daily, and current trends list. In HootSuite only the current trends are provided, and it’s opening it is very “un-usable”; it’s a dropdown when entering the search field!

5. View popular Links

In AT, simply click the (Popular) Links item in the main menu to view the most popular links in the Twittersphere. No support in HootSuite.

6. Quick Go To User

AT provides a text input on every page where you may enter a username and jump to that user’s profile or timeline page. No similar feature in HootSuite.

7. Faster to View User Timeline

AT provides a “TL” icon in each tweet so that the user may jump to the author’s timeline with one click. In HootSuite, You must open the user details dialog, then navigate to the Timeline tab.

8. Delete your tweet in all timelines

AT provides a link to delete your tweet on all pages in which your tweet may appear. In HootSuite, the delete option is only available in your Sent timeline.

9. Links to followers, following

The user details page contains links to followers and those following; HootSuite’s user details page doesn’t.

10. No broken account icons

In HootSuite, the icons for users many times are broken; the images do not load correctly. This issue occurs on different browsers and has been for many months now.

11. No horizontal formatting issues

When a modal window is opened in HootSuite from the right column, it throws off the horizontal display. (It can be fixed by clicking an obscure button on the bottom left.)

12. Don’t lost your place in timeline due to updates

AT never messes with your page content without you approving. In HootSuite, how irritating: when I scroll down to read tweets, and there’s an auto-update, I lose my place. And then it’s difficult to relocate the tweet I was reading when interrupted.

I missed the workshops, but attended the 2 1/2 days of the main conference and also presented one session. The slides are posted on SlideShare.net and briefly made the “” list on the home page. You may view and DIGG the “Twitter and Web Accessibility” presentation here. It’s also embedded below.

Highlights of the conference include:

• Finally meeting Jared Smith of WebAIM.  We’ve known each other for several years online; since he was a guest in the early days of the Web Axe podcast and blog. Great guy.
• I also met other great people, and several from Europe – UK, Netherlands, and Spain. And how could I forget, John Foliot of Stanford was there, too!
• Great venue. The conference was held at a new hotel this year, the Westin Westminster, which was very nice. Much more spacious and elegant than previous years. (I attended the AHG 2008 event.) Some great restaurants, including Rock Bottom Brewery, were just across the street.
• The day before I left, it started snowing. The streets were slushy, but the snow was pretty. I was a bit nervous about my flight home, but the Denver airport did a great job and there were virtually no delays.

For more information, you may:

• View the presentation on slideshare: Accessible Twitter at Open Web Camp presentation.
• Learn more about the event with the Twitter hash tag: #openWebCamp.

After-party gathering outside on Stanford campus during OpenWebCamp.

Photo from OpenWebCamp album on Flickr from Barbara Haven.

Please give me a Digg if you have an account. My Digg description is as follows:

The first in a series of articles from Even Grounds featuring accessibility experts. In this article, guest author Dennis Lembree links “wrong vs right’, Twitter and web accessibility, and modern coding practices.

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