TikTok Adds Support for AI-Powered Alternative Text and Other Accessibility Features

TikTok announced three new accessibility-focused features on Thursday. The new features were announced on the occasion of the Global Accessibility Awareness Day, which falls on the third Thursday in May (this year, it is on May 15). One of the new features is an update to the alternative text (alt text) support, which now uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate automatic descriptive captions. Other accessibility features include a new high contrast mode and support for bold text. Notably, earlier this week, the company introduced a new image-to-video generation tool.

TikTok Brings Three New Accessibility Features

In a newsroom post, the video-focused social media platform detailed the three new accessibility features it was introducing for users. These features will join the platform's existing accessibility tools, such as auto-generated captions for videos, dark mode, text-to-speech, and thumbnail animation.

The first new feature is AI-generated alt text. TikTok added alt text for photo posts several weeks ago. Users could manually add a caption describing the image, and it could be read out loud by screen readers. Now, it is building on the feature by using AI to generate descriptive captions for photos that do not have alt text. The company says this will improve usability for people who are blind, have low vision, or process content differently.

Next is an option to increase colour contrast on the platform. TikTok is introducing a high contrast mode that increases the foreground colour of text, icons, and user interface elements. This feature can be found in the Accessibility option within Settings, marked as Increase colour contrast. TikTok says this will make the platform more user-friendly for individuals with low vision or those sensitive to low contrast.

Finally, the platform is also adding support for the bold text setting in devices. If a device has set the text setting to bold, they will now see all in-app text, including names, comments, captions, and messages in bold as well. This will increase readability for users who prefer bolder text or have vision issues. All of these new features are now available for all users with the latest update.