Every website owner knows that the image descriptions or alternative texts (Alt) are required for a website to rank better in search engines. Plus, this text also helps to assist screen-reading technology in describing images to visually challenged readers. Twitter announced that its ALT badge is now available to all users, allowing anyone to easily put descriptions of their image posts.

Twitter has also included step-by-step instructions for using the new ALT badge. Users can now start by uploading a photo, according to the platform. After that the image has been uploaded, there will be a new option under the image called “Add description,” where users can give a detailed description of the image. The maximum number of characters accepted is 1,000, and the total number of characters entered is displayed in the text box’s corner. When you’re finished, select Save and the ALT badge will display in the image’s corner.

Once your image post has been published, your followers and Twitter users can tap on the badge to view the image description that you wrote when you tweet the image post. It can be easily dismissed by using the Dismiss button, clicking the escape key, or clicking or tapping anywhere outside the box.

Last March 10, the public ALT badge and exposed image descriptions features were originally released and tested on only 3% of Twitter users across Android, iOS, and the Web. The new feature is expected to improve things for users after nearly a month of collecting input and sorting out bugs.

Adding image descriptions allows people who are blind, have low vision, use assistive tech, live in low-bandwidth areas, or have a cognitive disability, to fully contribute on Twitter. We know these features have been a long time coming, and we’re grateful for your patience. We’re also working on the image description reminder. We’ll share more on that soon. Until then, tell us what you think about the ALT badge and exposed image descriptions.

Twitter Accessibility team

Although Twitter began offering image descriptions in 2016, the process of adding and finding the feature was quite difficult. Until 2020, the company did not have its own accessibility team. The company engineer also said that before that, Twitter exclusively committed the development of its accessibility features to workers who were willing to dedicate their time to it. However, it is predicted that, with the addition of a new dedicated team to the company, Twitter will be able to offer more features that will make things easier for all users.

In case you missed our Twitter tweet edit button article, you can read it here where the company working on the Edit button after Elon Musk’s poll received more than 4.2 million votes with 73.5 percent in favor of the feature.