Twitter Social Media General News

Twitter enables image tags to aid visually impaired

Author

By John Glenday | Reporter

March 30, 2016 | 1 min read

Twitter has enhanced its image functionality by enabling users to tag pictures with an image description to improve accessibility amongst the visually impaired.

From today those with the Apple and iOS app will be able to describe their pictures in up to 420 characters which can then be accessed and read by the visually impaired using an automated text reader.

The new functionality has also been designed to aid search engine compatibility, by enabling labelled tweets to be more readily paired up with search terms.

This follows the publication of stats showing that tweets with photos benefit from 313 per cent higher engagement than a non-visual tweet.

Twitter has not been shy of change as it seeks to improve its product with CEO Jack Dorsey agreeing to increase the 140 character limit for tweets as well as exploring the idea of adding the ability to edit tweets.

As yet there has been no word on when the image tag feature might be introduced for web users.

Twitter Social Media General News

More from Twitter

View all

Trending

Industry insights

View all
Add your own content +