TikTok has released an outline of their accessibility initiatives to provide their diverse community with a better user experience on the platform. The features curated exclusively for their users include: photosensitive prompts, text-to-speech tools, animated thumbnails and auto captions.
Being truly inclusive means building products and tools for everyone. We're always striving to make TikTok more accessible which is why we're excited to share a new website focused on our accessibility efforts. https://t.co/Y58SJj0e3P
— TikTokComms (@TikTokComms) June 3, 2021
TikTok shared their focus on building an all-inclusive platform and are determined in developing new products and tools to further help their mission:
“At TikTok, we’re committed to maintaining an inclusive environment and supporting our diverse community. Inclusivity is important to us because when people feel included, they’re more comfortable expressing themselves authentically, creating content, and engaging with others. Being truly inclusive means building products and tools for everyone. Our cross-functional teams work with our creator community, as well as disability organizations and advocates to help ensure TikTok is accessible to everyone.”
1. Photosensitive epilepsy toggle & warning
TikTok users with photosensitive epilepsy or light-induced migraines can choose to toggle off videos with special effects that can be harmful to them. Creators will also be receiving disclaimer prompts if they have chosen those effects in their video. Users can navigate to “Settings and privacy” and tap on “Accessibility” to update your changes.
Joshua Goodman, Director of Product, Trust and Safety at TikTok, announced the feature in November 2020 revealing that the feature was made by partnering with epilepsy advocates:
“To be a truly inclusive platform we’re committed to making TikTok more accessible for everyone, and given the visual nature of our platform we’re beginning this work with a series of photosensitivity features. Over the past few months, our team met with epilepsy advocates who shared feedback on how we can improve our platform.”
2. Text-to-speech
The in-built feature converts text to speech that will play over a TikTok video to make the app user-friendly for visually impaired users. The feature can be accessed by tapping the text and clicking on “Text-to-speech.”
3. Animated thumbnails
The animated thumbnail feature allows users to select animated or static video images which better helps users sensitive to flashing content. Similar to the photosensitive toggle feature, users can enable the feature by going to “Settings and privacy” and tapping on “Accessibility.”
4. Auto captions
The feature automatically converts a TikTok video’s audio into text that helps deaf users to view content. Creators can add the auto captions after uploading or recording the video with the option to edit.