[ad_1]
Instagram is a visual service; it is a stream of photos, videos and memos that users are recording, but the company is currently rethinking the optimization of a visual service for visually impaired users with a few new features.
The accessibility-focused update that was released today offers two options for giving visually impaired users alternative textual descriptions of what's happening in messages. One uses text input by the user, while the other uses Facebook's object recognition technology to do most of the work.
The descriptions will surface for users using screen readers. The Alternative text option entered by the user will appear in the advanced settings when a user posts a photo. It's really a little out of the way, but it exists now, so it's something. Although the human-written visual description provides a sufficient level of depth, the company will obviously use its object recognition software for most textual descriptions of elements in the Flux, Explorer and Profile sections.
This is an interesting proposition for a service that has made a name for itself by being almost entirely visual, keeping the text and external navigations at bay while promoting a flow focused solely on visual absorption. At this point, Instagram is far from being marginalized, nor is the segment of the visually impaired population: 285 million according to the blog post announcing the feature.
Source link
