TikTok Adds Three New Accessibility Features
Accessibility features built into devices and apps are essential to making technology easier to use. Apple recently announced a set of new and expanded accessibility updates, such as Accessibility Reader and improved Braille support, coming to its devices later this year. TikTok is now rolling out several new features to make its platform and content more accessible to everyone. This is what will happen.
AI-powered alt text
TikTok already has an alt text feature that allows creators to manually add alt text—a short description accessible to screen readers—to photo posts when uploading or even after publishing the content. (This can be found under More Options > Add Alt Text .) The platform is currently testing an AI feature that will automatically describe content out loud if creators don’t include alt text, improving usability for those who are blind or have low vision.
Increased color contrast
TikTok users can now enable High Contrast mode, which enhances the foreground color of text, icons, and other app elements. Color contrast enhances the difference between text and objects on the page and their background, improving readability. This complements the existing text size feature, which allows users to increase or decrease text size specifically within the TikTok app (regardless of device settings). Both features can be turned on or off under Accessibility > Appearance .
Bold text
TikTok will now comply with device-level bold text settings, so all text in the app will appear in bold when this display feature is enabled. Bold text can be turned on or off in Settings > Display & Brightness on iOS or Settings > Accessibility > Display Size & Text > Bold Text on Android.
Other accessibility settings already available in TikTok include toggles for removing light-sensitive videos, adding auto-generated captions to content and thumbnail animations, as well as dark mode and device-level compatibility with screen readers.