Twitter is trying to solve accessibility issues

Agencies: Twitter announced a new push to improve accessibility options to ensure tweets are accessible and usable by all potential users.

Twitter wants to solve accessibility issues, and said in a post: We know we need to make more effort to make our service accessible, and we will do that.

When Twitter tested a new feature allowing users to share audio clips with tweets, it received criticism for not including accessibility tools such as written captions.

Audio tweets were an important addition for those who cannot write using regular keyboards, providing another way to interact with the platform and participate in the wider discussion.

But this led to a bigger discussion about how the platform handles accessibility, and it seems Twitter has heard the criticism and realized it needs to do better.

Twitter launched two new teams: the Accessibility Center of Excellence (ACE) team, and the Experience Accessibility Team (EAT).

The Accessibility Center of Excellence (ACE) team is supposed to make aspects of Twitter, such as office spaces, marketing, legal standards, and policies, more accessible.

Meanwhile, the Experience Accessibility Team (EAT) will work on facilitating access to new and existing products and features.

The platform is working on adding automatic captions to audio and video by early 2021, laying the foundation for a long-term roadmap that heavily invests in media accessibility across Twitter.

The platform said: Public conversation service means taking continuous steps to make Twitter more accessible, and this must include people with disabilities. Testing audio tweets made us realize how much work we still need to do as a company.

It added, “We are committed to making Twitter more inclusive for the community with special needs, with dedicated teams focusing on greater accessibility across all our products.

Twitter has partnered with external groups, and will collect feedback over the coming months from people with disabilities through interviews and surveys, as well as conducting remote usability studies of new prototypes.

Facebook added automatic captions in 2016, while LinkedIn added automatic alternative text last year, and Twitter seems to be a bit late in this regard.