Twitter launches ALT badge and improved image descriptions globally

	The platform provides a comprehensive guideline for users to add image descriptions
	Twitter first launched image descriptions 6 years back


American social media company, Twitter has reportedly announced the rollout of its ALT badge along with upgraded image descriptions globally.

Twitter is adding accessibility features to make alt text descriptions relatively more prominent than before for all users worldwide.

As a part of the latest development, images with text descriptions will be provided with a badge that says “alt”, which after clicking on will allow users to view the description.

Twitter first stimulated the suspense last month when the social media platform announced that it was working on some changes.

Twitters Accessibility account quoted in its tweet that the company is keeping its promise with the roll out of ALT badge and exposed image descriptions all across the globe after working for the last month on fixing bugs and collecting feedback from limited release group.

The latest tweet boldly broadcasted the readiness of Twitter and its users to describe images.

Twitter’s offered a step-by-step guide on how to incorporate image descriptions in a blog post:


	Upload the desired image to be tweeted – select Add description tab below the image
	Enter suitable text/description of the image in the text box – which has a word count limit of 1,000 characters displayed in the corner of the box
	After clicking on Save at the end, an ALT badge will be displayed at one end of the image
	When one clicks on the ALT badge, the image description will emerge on the screen


Before the latest roll-out, majority of users needed screen readers to access alt text descriptions and struggled with image descriptions that were first launched by Twitter in 2016, which became notoriously popular for difficulties in finding and adding them.

Twitter did not create a dedicated accessibility team for the feature until late 2020, when workers volunteered in the team to address accessibility issues.   

Source Credit: https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/7/23015669/twitter-alt-badge-improved-image-descriptions-accessibility