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7 Ways to make your Tweets more Accessible

Lindsey Kopacz on May 22, 2019

Originally posted on www.a11ywithlindsey.com. In that post I've included videos with how it sounds to screen readers, but because they aren't hoste...
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Saurabh Sharma

Adding alt text to gifs, I will keep that in mind, thanks

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Lindsey Kopacz

It's a really fun way to get creative too! I usually describe why I am using the gif!

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Akshay Kadam (A2K)

Thanks for the GIF one as I tend to use a lot of GIFs but don't know what to type as alt text. And the last one was new. Does it mean I have to write #HASHTAG like this?

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Lindsey Kopacz

No it’s more like if you have a hashtag that’s a phrase, capitalize the first letter of the word of the phrase

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Saurabh Sharma

like #LoveYouTwitter ?

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Akshay Kadam (A2K)

Ohh sorry I just skimmed fast. Should've read it :)

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Ben Sinclair • Edited

β€œThank clapping hands you clapping hands Kent.”

That's what it sounds like in my head.

I have no idea what it's supposed to mean, either. Does it mean the person strongly agrees with, is sarcastically slow-clapping or is just being cutesy? I haven't the foggiest.

When I see someone say "I ❀️ :unidentified mammal: :100!: πŸ”₯" I assume they're talking about a sportsball team, but even if I was familiar with the mascots for different locations, I'm going to struggle to work out whether you're talking about a beaver or an otter at the tiny pictogram sizes we're sharing. And it'll be different on different people's devices.

If I see more than the occasional smiley in someone's tweet, post, comment, whatever, I generally just skip the whole thing, and I bet I'm not the only one.

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Andy Piper

Hey Lindsey! Thanks for sharing these excellent tips - I'm hopeful that we'll see more people start to understand the importance. I admit that while I do have alternative text enabled, I am not very good at adding it - I've seen more people starting to do the alt thing with GIFs, too. Great advice here!

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Riccardo Bernardini

"Today's tea" when read by assistive technology sounds like some form of strange rap... I guess someone could make a song out of it... Nevertheless, I agree that it is best to avoid it.

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Jessica Garson

Friend! This is so awesome!

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Steffen Pedersen • Edited

This is a really great article! I guess it depends on your target group. Some followers are expecting the newest and most trendy combination of emojis and symbols πŸ™ƒ

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Jonathan Silvestri

I'm having a hard time picking a good theme color. My current one passes for night mode but falls a little short on normal mode. Do you optimize for one over the other?