MATA tweets are not accessible

Much of MATA information sent with pictures of text

 

By Christina Clift, MCIL Advocate

People use social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat to stay connected.  We use them to send shout-outs to friends, to promote events, and to follow trending news topics. Twitter is even used by President Trump to communicate his thoughts to the entire world.  

Some people use Twitter to follow the Memphis Area Transit Authority (MATA) to find out about route changes and other information that might impact their daily bus commute.  But their tweets aren’t always accessible to everyone.

A tweet is typically composed of up to 140 characters including punctuation marks.  So using proper English is not always easy and abbreviations and hashtags are more common.  However the one thing that can make the best tweet inaccessible for someone who is blind are photos.

Many people rely on assistive technology software to read what’s on the screen. Technology allows people with visual impairments to keep up with Twitter just like everyone else. To make photos accessible over the web, developers use an “alt tag” that describes the photo.

MATA however, is tweeting images of flyers that are not described by the alt tag. To a blind patron, it is an image that does not have a description. The technique allows MATA to far exceed the 140 character limit in one tweet, but it is not accessible to a screen reader. 

For example, MATA has tweeted information on the 2017 December Service Changes Proposed back on October 17, 2017 that would take at least 3 text tweets. Because they used an image, all the information is in the picture, but it cannot be read by the computer as a typical tweet. The computer sees the tweet as an image and does not have a related “alt tag” to describe the picture.

• Example of inaccessible tweet by MATA: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DMVcEnfUQAAE6n8.jpg:large
• Example of an inaccessible retweet: https://twitter.com/APTA_Transit/status/923662933338607623

MATA sometimes uses photos to convey messages to its followers, but they are not communicating effectively to everyone.  MATA also has a federal responsibility to provide effective communication. The irony is that Twitter has a very simple method to provide the information in an accessible format.  By simply adding the appropriate alt tag to their photos, MATA can ensure that everyone receives their messages and not just the sighted.  

Yesterday MCIL had the opportunity to bring this issue up with the new MATA CEO, Gary Rosenfeld. As he recapped the meeting, Mr. Rosenfeld included accessible tweets was one of the six items MATA said they would work with MCIL on to provide more effective service.