Twitter Launches Alt Text Feature, Enables Users Add Descriptions To Photos Shared

Microblogging and social networking platform Twitter, has officially launched the alt text feature that enables users to add descriptions to their photos.

The social networking site began the testing of this feature on limited accounts in July this year. After the successful testing phase, it then decided to roll out the feature for all users on the platform.

In an effort to ensure that thousands of images that get posted and retweeted daily on the platform are accessible to visually impaired people, Twitter had to introduce the alt text feature, which is a written description of what’s in an image that can be picked up by a screen reader software used by internet users who are blind or visually impaired.

After a few disability activists urged Twitter to introduce the alt text feature, they have described the introduction of the feature as a long time coming, adding that Twitter should urge users who are not visually impaired to be more consistent with adding alt text to images.

With this newly launched feature, when a user is about to post a picture of the platform, he or she will be given the option to add the alt text which they will need to click on the edit button on the image and then go to the tab named ALT.  When they tap on that, they will be presented with up to 1,000 characters to describe the picture.

Twitter is aware an alt text reminder feature is something users have wanted for a while, says Gerard Cohen, software engineering manager on Twitter’s accessibility experience team.

In his words, “If it was up to us, we would snap our fingers and the world would be accessible. We understand that it’s been a long time coming.

“We’re very grateful for those bot makers, those people that have gone ahead and done it.”

The alt text reminders will be opt-in, meaning that users will need to go into their account settings to turn on the prompts, which will sync across the device.

Once reminders are on, users will get notified each time they add an image without alt text, prompting them to go back and add descriptions before posting.