Digital Inclusion and Accessibility: Top 100 Influencers and Brands

Whether you need to pay a household bill, find a job or maintain contact with your family and relatives, going online has become essential part of our every day lives. For many though, this is still a daunting prospect. They might not possess the right skills, motivation and trust to confidently go online, they might not even have access to a computer. Digital inclusion and accessibility is about reaching out to those people and helping them develop their digital capabilities, and improving their access to these services.

WHAT ARE THE EXPERTS SAYING?

We reached out to some of the top influencers on our list to ask them for their views on digital inclusion and accessibility. We spoke to Antonio Santos (#8), Neil Milliken (#11) and John Popham (#20). Be sure to follow them to stay up to date on the best content and resources on digital inclusion and accessibility.

Marcy Sutton -Senior Front-End Engineer at Deque
“As web creators, we have both the responsibility and the opportunity to make websites and applications that work for as many people as possible. This includes people with disabilities who rely on the accessible web to live more productive lives. By advocating for them, I can use my voice to amplify the importance of Inclusive Design and try to make the web a better place–tweet by tweet, article by article, demo by demo. It’s imperative that we bring people along while we educate them about digital accessibility. And social media is a fantastic resource for that greater purpose.”

Antonio Santos – Social Media Business Evangelist / Lead for Social Activation and Training at Atos
“Accessibility is not a feature, it’s a social trend. Technology should be used to improve the way we communicate, learn and live. When I started AXSChat Twitter Chat with Debra Ruh and Neil Milliken two years ago, our main purpose was to take the conversations around accessibility and digital inclusion outside the normal groups and create a space where everybody could join, listen, contribute or evangelise about the importance of creating a more inclusive web.  As result of those conversations, I regularly receive calls via Skype from people asking for more information in relation to topics like neurodiversity, accessibility resources in social media, reduction of the digital divide, how to caption live events etc. People have approached me in the street, saying that they don’t participate in the Twitter chat, but that they listen to the conversation every week. They appreciate the work we are doing when we talk about disclosing a disability at work, but their employer is not ready. This helps them to cope with their fragility, because they know that the world is not ignoring the space that they are entitledto, at the workplace and in society.”

John Popham – Digital Storyteller and Social Entrepreneur at John Popham
“For me digital inclusion is one of the major issues of our time. People who are missing out on making full and effective use of the internet are disadvantaged in so many ways. For them, life is more expensive, lonelier, and much less rich in opportunity. And yet much of society simply assumes that we are all living in the digital age, while the pace of change leaves the digitally excluded even further behind. And even where efforts are made to address the issue, so much of policy and practice has yet to catch up with the reality of how we live our digital lives, with resources wasted on classroom initiatives aimed at encouraging people to get to grips with word-processing and spreadsheets, when what they really need is inspiration to explore how digital technologies can enhance their lives, help them communicate with distant friends and relatives, and add much-needed fun to their daily routines.”

Neil Milliken – Head of Accessibility & Digital Inclusion at Atos
“Accessibility is personal to users – It is allowing personalisation that allows people to do stuff they couldn’t otherwise do. Accessibility is about ensuring everyone is included. Everyone is unique, we all have different needs and use technology in ways that suit our needs. Accessibility is all about allowing people to do stuff in a way that suits them best. Sounds a lot like user preference right? Alastair Sommerville (@AcuityDesign) refers to accessibility as “Extreme Personalisation”. In my day job for Atos I deliver accessibility & digital inclusion for staff and clients – it’s an exciting and challenging role. We’ve built a core team of inclusive technologists and will continue to work on inclusive user experiences. I also co-founded AXSChat with Debra Ruh and Antonio Santos to stimulate inclusive conversations & help grow the community that is working towards a more inclusive society. The AXSChat community has really delivered we have fantastic engagement with the hashtag rippling across social media 1.3billion times since March 2015. Every time I get frustrated with accessibility and the challenges of delivery, I take a step back and think of the things above, remember why I love working in the field of digital inclusion.”

TOPIC ANALYSIS

MAPPING THE COMMUNITY

We were very interested in seeing which brand and individuals were leading the discussion around digital inclusion and accessibility, so we analysed over 53K tweets mentioning the key words: ((Accessibility OR Accessible) AND (Web OR digital OR Internet OR website)) OR “Digital Inclusion” OR digitalinclusion from the 5th July – 2nd October 2016. We then identified the top 100 most influential brands and individuals leading the discussion on Twitter. What we discovered was a very engaged community, with much discussion between individuals and brands. Below you can see a network map of the online conversation with number one individual Valerie Jarrett at the centre. This map was created with our Influencer Relationship Management software (IRM). Be sure to click on the map to enjoy the full size network diagram in greater detail.

Below you can see another network map created with our Influencer Relationship Management software (IRM) showing the number 3 brand WAI at W3C at the centre and all the conversations to and from the influencers in their field. If you are interested in learning more about identifying, managing and engaging with influencers click here to get in touch!

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TOP 100 INDIVIDUALS

We looked at all the individuals engaging on Twitter to bring you a list of the top influencers in Digital Inclusion and Accessibility. Below is the top 50, if you want to see who ranks from 50-100 be sure to download the full report by clicking the download button below.

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Rank	Twitter Handle	Name	Company	Influencer Score
1	@vj44	Valerie Jarrett	The White House	100
2	@kevinaggett1	Kevin Aggett	RPS Group	98.37
3	@rob_dodson	Rob Dodson	Google	95.93
4	@addyosmani	Addy Osmani	Google	91.07
5	@marcysutton	Marcy Sutton	Deque	61.68
6	@SaraSoueidan	Sara Soueidan	Freelance	33
7	@zeldman	Jeffrey Zeldman	studio.zeldman	21.25
8	@akwyz	Antonio Santos	Atos	21.23
9	@stevefaulkner	Steve Faulkner	The Paciello Group	20.84
10	@deconspray	Dennis Deacon	Freelance	20.49
11	@NeilMilliken	Neil Milliken	Atos	20.19
12	@danjoachim	Joachim	Social Entrepreneurs’ Network – Africa	19.46
13	@myraclera	Marian Clara Adeaba	GhanaThink Foundation	19.33
14	@beep	Ethan Marcotte	Responsive Web Design	18.94
15	@dugboticus	Alistair Duggin	Government Digital Service	18.7
16	@rsprasad	Ravi Shankar Prasad	Government of India	18.64
17	@jsutt	Jennifer Sutton	JSutton Media	18.52
18	@akyherb	Fiifi	Pilologh	18.41
19	@debraruh	Debra Ruh	Rug Global	17.88
20	@johnpopham	John Popham	johnpopham.com	16.47
21	@dboudreau	Denis Boudreau	Deque	16.24
22	@DavidLepofsky	David Lepofsky	AODA Alliance	14.31
23	@LFLegal	Lainey Feingold	LF Legal	14.19
24	@roomeezon	Imran Hafeez Panhwar	Government of Pakistan	14.13
25	@helenmilner	helen milner	Tinder Foundation	13.99
26	@specific213	Antumwini Specific	GhanaThink Foundation	13.8
27	@SinaBahram	Sina Bahram	Prime Access Consulting	13.19
28	@mgifford	Mike Gifford	OpenConcept Consulting	13.15
29	@kentcdodds	Kent C. Dodds	PayPal	13.05
30	@Jennison	Jennison Asuncion	LinkedIn	13.01
31	@kumadorian	francis kumadoh	Our Ghana Blog	12.35
32	@General_KELI	科力	GhanaThink Foundation	12.31
33	@cordeliadillon	Cordelia	Dropbox	12.13
34	@Gina_Wilson_	Gina Wilson	Carnegie UK Trust	11.86
35	@mayabenari	Maya Benari	18F	11.66
36	@duncanqwame33	Duncan E.K. Gablah	GhanaThink Foundation	11.53
37	@rjstein	Rob Stein	Dallas Museum of Art	11.27
38	@mholzschlag	molly	Vivaldi	10.76
39	@pauljadam	Paul J. Adam	Desque Systems	10.56
40	@edaccessible	Eduardo Meza-Etienne	DC Metro BLN	10.38
41	@jimbyrnewebdev	Jim Byrne	Jim Byrne Accessible Website Design	10.1
42	@karlgroves	Karl Groves	The Paciello Group	10.01
43	@Kwasi_Bruce	K. Frank Bruce	GhanaThink Foundation	9.75
44	@Pvalsfr	Patrick Roubinet	Coca-Cola	9.72
45	@mpaciello	Mike Paciello	The Paciello Group	9.71
46	@pfanderson	P. F. Anderson	University of Michigan	8.96
47	@JakubJedryszek	Jakub Jedryszek	Microsoft	8.96
48	@osamidan	Idan Osam	Tigo Ghana	8.93
49	@CEEKTechnology	Christopher McMillan	Charter Communications	8.74
50	@CCTetteh	Courage C. Tetteh	LIFE-MAC Network Foundation	8.73

 

TOP 100 BRANDS

We also looked at all the brands engaging on Twitter to bring you a list of the top brands talking about Digital Inclusion and Accessibility. Below is the top 50, if you want to see who ranks from 50-100 be sure to download the report to get the full top 100 list, and see who are most the influential brands in Digital Inclusion and Accessibility.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL REPORT

Rank	Twitter Handle	Name	Influencer Score
1	@whitehouseostp	The White House OSTP	100
2	@smashingmag	Smashing Magazine	79.52
3	@w3c_wai	WAI at W3C	76.19
4	@ChromiumDev	Chrome Developers	44.45
5	@Jisc	Jisc	40.77
6	@educationweek	Education Week	32.51
7	@CarnegieUKTrust	Carnegie UK Trust	26.79
8	@MSFTEnable	MSFT Accessibility	25.88
9	@lullabot	Lullabot	22.45
10	@DisabledGo	DisabledGo	17.66
11	@NTENorg	NTEN	16.67
12	@accessible_rr	Accessibility	16.2
13	@OnSpecEd	On Special Education	15.71
14	@AAMers	Alliance of Museums	14.76
15	@DC_Wales	DigiCommunitiesWales	14.62
16	@MSJE_AIC	Accessible India	14.52
17	@webaxe	Web Axe	13.9
18	@TechmumsHQ	#techmums	12.74
19	@itknowingness	IT Knowingness	11.96
20	@UserVision	User Vision	11.29
21	@pluralsight	Pluralsight	10.45
22	@umatters	Usability Matters	10.08
23	@VandelayDesign	Vandelay Design	10.03
24	@govtechnews	Govtech.com	9.99
25	@IBMAccess	IBM Accessibility	9.92
26	@EdGameTec	EdTech	9.85
27	@Disabilitygov	Disability.gov	9.61
28	@RWD	Responsive Design	9.44
29	@TechSoup	TechSoup	8.64
30	@javascriptd	Javascript Digest	8.51
31	@BeingExample	Being Example	8.35
32	@MollyWattTalks	Molly Watt Talks	8.24
33	@eSmart_AMF	eSmart	7.81
34	@AODAontario	AccessibilityOntario	7.39
35	@AFB1921	AFB	7.36
36	@RNIBRadio	RNIB Connect Radio	7.35
37	@mediaaccessaus	Media Access Aus	7.18
38	@people4research	People for Research	7.11
39	@Gaggle_K12	Gaggle	7.08
40	@internetsociety	Internet Society	6.95
41	@CP_Consortium	Changing Places	6.78
42	@alannahmadeline	Alannah Madeline Fdn	6.83
43	@TheSiliconHill	The Silicon Hill	6.63
44	@think_inclusive	Think Inclusive	6.63
45	@ONSdigital	ONSdigital	6.51
46	@Soulecting	Soulfully Connecting	6.48
47	@acquia	Acquia	6.3
48	@FrontEndDaily	Front-End Daily	6.26
49	@cuoredicoppia	CUOREdiCOPPIA	6.21
50	@euroblind	European Blind Union	6.06

 

At Onalytica we love building these lists and want to give back to our loyal readers as much as we can. If you’re interested in other topics (such as Virtual Reality, Digital Health, Digital Marketing) be sure to have a gander on our blog or why not propose some topics to us on twitter? We also build some very cool software to manage all of these influencers. Get a free demo today by clicking the button below!

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Disclaimer: As ever with these lists, it must be stressed that the ranking is by no means a definitive measurement of influence, as there is no such thing. The brands and individuals listed are undoubtedly influential when it comes to driving discussion around digital inclusion and accessibility.

The PageRank based methodology we use to extract influencers on a particular topic takes into account the number and quality of contextual references that a user receives. These calculations also take into account a user’s relevance (number of tweets on topic) and reach (number of followers). If you want to learn more, please read our article that outlines influencer identification.

Graphics Provided by www.vecteezy.com

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