Twitter has announced a new accessibility feature for visually impaired people. The online social networking platform will now be adding descriptions of the pictures in tweets.
The latest feature can be activated quite simply. All the twitter users need to do is to go to the option of Twitter accessibility in the Settings and enable the compose image descriptions option.
Apart from Twitter users, this new feature has also been made available for publishers as well as developers.
Now, as twitter users add an image to their tweet, an Add Description button will be displayed with the thumbnail in the composer. The image descriptions can be simply added by tapping this button.
The feature has especially been introduced for the visually impaired people. Usually, the visually impaired people use the feature via various assistive technology such as the Braille displays and screen readers.
Twitter has limited the maximum length of the image descriptions up to 420 characters. The social media platform has made updated the REST API as well as the Twitter cards in order to ensure that the upgrade can readily be utilized and is made accessible universally.
While announcing the new feature, the company statement read:
“Photos have been at the center of some of the biggest moments on Twitter. As a core part of the Twitter experience, it’s important that images shared on our platform are accessible to everyone, including those who are visually impaired. We’re excited to empower our customers and publishers to make images on Twitter accessible to the widest possible audience, so everyone can be included in the conversation and experience the biggest moments together.”
Even though it is not predictable whether regular Twitter users will yield to incorporate descriptions to their pictures, yet the latest accessibility feature is sure to be an intriguing one in the days to come.
