I have seen that LinkedIn has done quite a lot on improving accessibility and it looks like they have a dedicated team of accessibility experts that is working continuously on this important matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Social media must me accessible too. If you only think abundance of users that are using social media channels on a daily basis – then it is maybe one of the most important services, next to government services and banking.<\/p>just in my opinion.<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
LinkedIn, known for it’s professional mission is maybe even more important than other social media – people with disabilities must have a right to work too. And everybody should be able to use social media today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I found a small bug that is actually very annoying for a screen-reader user:
when a user makes a new post and writes a valid URL LinkedIn page tries to automatically extract the image that is coded into Open Graph meta data of the page (opens in new window)<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThis is a superb functionality – user does not need to do anything, LinkedIn is – by default – showing the picture that website creators defined as main social media picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But – here comes the problem – the image needs alternative text and LinkedIn is currently just using “No alt text provided for this image” instead of showing a description or maybe allowing the author to add alternative text manually.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This would not be a problem if LinkedIn would maybe marked the image as decorative (as they are also showing the Title and URL in text form), but problem is that image is wrapped in a link and missing any other text which means that assistive technology user gets “No alt text provided for this image, Link” every time (s)he focuses on every image that was parsed automatically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I’ve really verified this, at first I thought I have to define the text via their user interface (UI), but I was unable to find such option. Then I tried to find the documentation for the Open Graph meta tags and made a test case just to test what happens when using exactly the same data that they define in the documentation<\/a> – still the same problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I tried to describe the problem on their Twitter account but was a bit misunderstood (opens in new window)<\/a>, but then I was asked to open a case on their help site (opens in new window)<\/a> which was closed almost immediately – their Product Team will look into it, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n