Twitter alt text badges accessibility feature starts rolling out

Twitter has been working hard on adding new features and enhancing the user experience on the platform recently, and as many features are being tested, some of them are starting to make their way to the general public. Engadget reports about one such feature that is now starting to roll out: alternative badges for images on Twitter.

Twitter starts rolling out alt badges

This feature was promised by Twitter to improve the alt text experience on the platform. It will be a slow rollout, and about a month will be spent by the company to roll out the accessibility feature to everyone. The global rollout is expected to happen at the start of the month of April.

This feature allows people with low vision or cognitive disability to better engage with and contribute to the social media platform and its content. Basically, the feature adds a description or "alt text" to an image. These descriptions can be useful if you have a slower internet speed too.

Right now, a small number of users have access to the new feature, and the list will grow in the coming weeks. Once you have it, you will be able to add alt text to an image by tapping on the "Add description" button that should appear after you upload a photo. Then, you will see an "alt" badge appear at the bottom left-hand corner of the image, where you can tap to read the description.

Additionally, Twitter is also working on a feature that will remind you to add descriptions to your images, but the company didn't share much about it, stating it would share more "soon".

This latest feature comes to shows that Twitter has been working on improving the accessibility of its platform. Back in 2020, Twitter had a voice note feature that didn't have accessibility tools such as captions, which had the company then apologize for its actions and establish two dedicated accessibility teams.

Other recent features Twitter has been working on

Enhancing its accessibility options is not all that Twitter has been working on recently. The company has many new features in testing, and some of them will make their way soon to the popular app.

One such feature that we recently reported on is the possibility to leave a conversation that you no longer want to participate in. We all know that sometimes, a Twitter thread can go on for a long time, and over time, it could get boring and even annoying to keep getting notifications and mentions about it. Twitter is currently working on making your life easier with a new feature called Leave Conversation.

The button to Leave a Conversation will untag your name, stop future mentions on the thread from happening, and you won't be getting any notifications about the conversation anymore.

Another quite useful feature was announced earlier by Twitter and will allow you to pin Direct Messages.

With this new feature, you will be able to pin select conversations at the top of your Direct messages, so you don't have to spend quite some time scrolling and looking for Twitter DMs with your friends or relatives. The cool thing is that the feature will allow you to pin up to six conversations to the top of your Direct Message inbox.

This useful feature should roll out in waves to Android and iOS users, as well as for users on the web.

Another recent feature that Twitter is testing, dubbed Safety Mode, has been in the works for some months and is now expanding to more users for feedback and insights.

You can activate the Safety Mode feature to block accounts that use potentially harmful language or send repetitive and unwanted replies or mentions to you for seven days.