Twitter Rolls Out ALT Badge and Prominent Image Descriptions Globally

Twitter is officially rolling out improved image descriptions as well as the ALT badge that will help creators add prominent alt descriptions on their images globally. The company announced on Thursday that the accessibility features would be available for all users.

“As promised, the ALT badge and exposed image descriptions go global today,” reads a tweet from Twitter’s Accessibility account.

The social media platform announced the feature last month when it started testing with a handful of users.

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“Over the past month, we fixed bugs and gathered feedback from the limited release group. We’re ready. You’re ready. Let’s describe our images!”

Images with a description will have an ‘alt’ badge which upon clicking, will display the description attached to it.

“You can add a description, sometimes called alt-text, to your photos so they’re accessible to even more people, including people who are blind or have low vision. Good descriptions are concise, but present what’s in your photos accurately enough to understand their context,” Twitter explains.

Here’s how to add the image descriptions

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• Once you have uploaded your image on the compose tweet, select ‘add description’ underneath the image.
• Enter the description of the image in the text box. The description is limited to 1,000 characters which are counted at the corner of the box.
• Click ‘Save’ and the ALT badge will be displayed at the corner of the image.
• Go ahead and post your tweet. If a user clicks on the ALT badge, the description will appear.

Normally, most people work on their images outside of Twitter and only post them with the alt descriptions already displayed. If the test is successful, the feature could prove useful to users  who share a lot of images such as Media houses.

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