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AI can now generate alternative text on photos, and new settings will help make content easier for people to process.
Abrar Al-Heeti Senior Technology Reporter
Abrar Al-Heeti is a senior technology reporter for CNET, with an interest in phones, streaming, autonomous vehicles, internet trends, entertainment, pop culture and digital accessibility. She’s also worked for CNET’s video, culture and news teams. She graduated with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Though Illinois is home, she now loves San Francisco — steep inclines and all.
Expertise Abrar has spent her career at CNET analyzing tech trends while also writing news, reviews and commentaries across mobile, streaming and online culture. Credentials
- Named a Tech Media Trailblazer by the Consumer Technology Association in 2019, a winner of SPJ NorCal’s Excellence in Journalism Awards in 2022 and has three times been a finalist in the LA Press Club’s National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards.
TikTok is adding a batch of new accessibility features to make content more inclusive for people with visual and cognitive disabilities, the company said Wednesday. The updates aim to make alternative text easier to add and access, and to improve general text legibility.
First, TikTok is testing a feature that uses AI to generate alternative text. Alt text is an image descriptor that can help blind or low-vision people who use a screen reader to better understand what’s being shown in a photo. It can also be helpful to people who process information differently, or if an image doesn’t load properly. Creators can add alt text when uploading photo posts or after publishing, but now AI can do that job, too.
Secondly, people on TikTok can now go into the app’s accessibility settings to increase color contrast. This will amplify the foreground color of text, icons and controls, which can be helpful to people with low vision or who are sensitive to low contrast.
To increase color contrast, go into TikTok’s accessibility settings and hit the toggle.
TikTokLastly, TikTok will show all in-app text in bold font if that’s the setting you’ve enabled on your device. This can enhance readability for people who prefer bold fonts.
The launch comes ahead of Global Accessibility Awareness Day on May 15. TikTok’s other accessibility features include auto-generated captions on videos, dark mode and text-to-speech. Other tech companies like Apple have announced their own slate of accessibility updates this week, too.
