Man Who Is Visually Impaired Goes Viral With Simple Tip To Make Twitter More Accessible

A Twitter user who is visually impaired sent out a simple request to make the platform more accessible

Did you know you can easily help those who are visually impaired better use Twitter? All it takes is two clicks, and those who rely on image descriptions are no longer excluded from full engagement in the Twitterverse.

Thanks to a tweet by Rob Long that’s now gone viral, thousands of Twitter users have now updated their accessibility settings.

Long, who describes himself as a “blind Twitter user,” shares the simple solution to better overall accessibility in two screenshots — that’s how simple it is to help people who are visually impaired interact with tweets. You click on “Settings and Privacy” in the Twitter menu, then you just click the “Accessibility button.” This allows users to “see” images in a way that keeps them engaged online.

Here are my own screenshots to show you just how easy it is.

Thanks to Rob’s viral tweet, people everywhere thanked him for the information and made sure to update accordingly.

Thanks to this particular setting, you can add a short description to photos — doing so allows those who rely on the voiceover setting to hear the description read out loud along with the tweet.

Twitter can often be an image-heavy platform (hello, reaction GIF overload) so providing further context to the stuff we share is important for users who are visually impaired. So whether it’s breaking news or just an image of someone’s Very Good Boy or Girl canine companion — folks who can’t see images with their eyes aren’t excluded from fully engaging in our 280-character ramblings.

For example, this Excellent Tweet sans image description may not make as much sense to Rob and other users who are visually impaired:

Typing in a description takes literally 0.2 seconds, and if we’re all on there typing away anyway — why not add one in?

Happy to see his tweet take off and have such an impact, Rob shared his gratitude for everyone’s cooperation: