TikTok Adds Alt Text for Still Image Posts

TikTok has added an alt text option for still image posts as another means to maximize accessibility and engagement in the app.

As you can see in these examples, shared by app researcher Radu Oncescu, there’s now an “Add alternative text” option within the photo post composer, providing a simple way to add text descriptions of your still image uploads.

Worth noting that TikTok also provides auto-generated captions for video clips as well, along with text-to-speech, and video is, of course, its primary content focus. You can also manually edit these captions to ensure their accuracy, and now you can add captions to your image posts.

As shown in the above screenshots, to add a text description of your photos, you can now write in a short sentence for each image to capture the key elements and focus.

It’s an important update, and while still images are still a lesser part of the TikTok experience, alt text will enable more users to “view” your content, and engage with all of your updates.

TikTok also recently shared tips on how to create engaging still image posts, and how to tell a story with your photos in the app.

Again, the main focus is video, and I don’t think that still images are going to become a major consideration in the broader scope of the app. But with TikTok also recently shutting down its separate Notes app experiment, which was focused on still images, maybe it’ll also look to boost image updates at some stage.