Twitter announced that it is testing new accessibility features to make alternative text descriptions significantly more useful and visible to everyone on the platform.
With the update, images that have a description will have a label that says "alt", and clicking on that label will display a description.
According to Twitter, about 3% of users will be able to test out the feature for a month and then the new feature will roll out globally in early April.
Launching from The Verge, as Twitter noted at the end of its tweet, actually the image description has been on the platform since 2016 but has always been missed by many users because it was not visible before they clicked on the image. That's the new way Twitter added the "alt" label.
To note, a description of the image can be added by clicking the "+alt" icon when you want to upload an image in a tweet. The description has a limit of up to 1,000 characters and everyone can access it.
Comprehensive support for alt tags shows how much Twitter has come on the accessibility front. In 2020, the company introduced a voice note feature that didn't come with accessibility tools like closed captioning.
They eventually apologized for his actions and then formed two special accessibility teams.
"We know these features have been around for a long time. We thank you for your patience." said Twitter.