Before you even get to whether the content of these sites is accessible, you need to get past the inaccessible elements of the sign-up process. All the Web 2.0 sites that were reviewed for this article require users to sign up, and all use a method called CAPTCHA (completely automated public Turing test to tell computers and humans apart) to verify that you are a human, not a computer. A CAPTCHA is a small graphic that contains text, numbers, or both. You are asked to type the characters that are displayed into a text field. CAPTCHAs are basically a Web 1.0 technology that is used to prevent automated systems, such as those used by spammers, from signing up for services. Unfortunately, because they are graphic, CAPTCHAs are completely inaccessible. Some CAPTCHAs include an audio alternative, but because of voice-recognition technology, the quality of the audio is poor on purpose. Anyone with less-than-perfect hearing or with auditory-processing problems would find them difficult to use.

The average user just does not know anything about the need for accessibility or how to go about making the content more accessible. This situation can be aggravated by the fact that the applications that end-users use to put content on the web site typically do not provide any way to make their content more accessible. For example, MySpace is a social networking site where individuals and organizations can put up content on their personal MySpace pages. Content can include photographs and videos. Even if users are aware of accessibility issues and want to provide accessible content to visitors to their pages, there is no facility to do even something as simple as providing alt-text with photographs.