Twitter on Thursday announced the introduction of the ALT badge and improved image descriptions for all users globally. Images with text descriptions will get a badge that reads ‘alt,’ and clicking on the badge will pop up the description. Twitter’s first announced changes came in March 2022, according to The Verge.
A tweet from Twitter’s Accessibility account said, “as promised, the ALT badge and exposed image descriptions go global today. 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!”
According to Twitter, this ALT badge and image description benefits people who are blind, have low vision, use assistive technology, live in low-bandwidth areas, or want more context.
Here are the steps to add ALT image descriptions to an image in a Tweet:
- After uploading an image to a tweet, select Add description underneath the image.
- Enter a description of the image in the text box, under the limit of 1000 words.
- Click Save, and an ALT badge will appear at the corner of the image.
- After tweeting, any user who sees your tweet will see an ALT badge with the image, and clicking on it pops up the description for your image.
Twitter first introduced image descriptions in 2016, but it could be hard to find where and how to add them. The social media giant didn’t have a dedicated accessibility team until late 2020, with workers who wanted to work on accessibility issues volunteering their time.Â
