Big News: Twitter Is Adding Alt Text for Images



Posted on 3-29-2016 at 12:10 PM Elizabeth Neal
  Twitter released a blog post today announcing Accessible Images 
for Everyone.  The post explains, "Starting today, people using 
our iOS and Android apps can add descriptions - also known as 
alternative text (alt text) - to images in Tweets," and goes on 
to describe how to enable the new feature.
  "We applaud Twitter's access efforts.  Tens of thousands of 
people who are blind or visually impaired use Twitter every day, 
and they will be excited to use and benefit from this increased 
level of accessibility," says Lee Huffman, AccessWorld Editor and 
Manager, Technology Information.
  Note that you must update your iOS and Android apps to access 
the new feature, and then enable it within your app's 
accessibility settings.
  We hope that Twitter will move quickly to make this the default 
setting, instead of something that has to be enabled user by 
user.  And we're also looking forward to seeing alt tags enabled 
on the web platform itself, which apparently is coming soon.
  Thank you, Twitter, for making your platform more accessible to 
everyone!


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