Does your company/tool support the inclusion of people with impairments? Inspiration by Apple & Meta
Whether it's employing people with disabilities or making products more accessible, I’ve been noticing efforts by major companies to support inclusion.
For example:
👉 Ray-Ban Meta Glasses now provide detailed audio descriptions of the environment via Meta AI, helping users with vision impairments.
👉 A “Call a Volunteer” connects blind or low-vision users with sighted volunteers for real-time assistance.
👉 “Sign-Speak” on WhatsApp (developed by a third party) translates speech into sign language and vice versa using AI-generated video clips.
👉 Apple is working on allowing users to control devices with a brain implant, enabling hands-free, voice-free digital access for individuals with motor impairments such as ALS, stroke, or spinal cord injuries.
Does your company or product support accessibility initiatives like these?
What advantages could building a more inclusive tool or workplace bring to your organisation?
Companies often carry out similar socially responsible activities as part of their "PRL or socially conscious marketing. Sometimes it crosses the line into "exploiting" marginalized groups, examples include pinkwashing or greenwashing. That’s why it’s important to have these values genuinely embedded in the company from the very beginning, not just presented for appearances.
Replies
Accessibility is part of a website's programming. Those who use screen readers rely on us. I believe it leads to better ranking as well. Having alt text for images having SR only content help with accessibility.
LLMs output code for it so it's a low effort ask. It can be checked through Page Speed Insights. It seems I need to work on my other metrics.
@mubashirullahd True. I started adding alt texts when I saw a blind woman trying to get information from that.
Headliner
@mubashirullahd Page Speed Insights is a great initial check. We actually changed our site's buttons based on it's feedback as the contrast was too close for color blind victors!
@elissa_craig Wonderful. I don't think a logrocket session would have helped pointing contrast issues.
Headliner
Absolutely! A large part of our company is designed to help creators make their content more accessible. We offer transcription and captioning tools for podcasts primarily.
When designing our transcription tool, we worked closely with members of the hearing impaired community to ensure the final product was both easy-to-use and followed best practices. A lot of work went into ensuring the transcript was readable by introducing natural breaks to separate long series of text, implement proper spacing, adding time stamps, and including speaker diarization so people knew when and where changes occurred.
One thing we also do is allowing people to transcribe YouTube videos via link share! This helps people get access to one of the largest consumption platforms when they otherwise may not have.
@elissa_craig This is a good example for helping when it comes to people with sight impairments. Do you communicate this somehow as social corporate responsibility within your website and across socials?
Headliner
@busmark_w_nika yes! We do push on our about page for the company. We also try to push the need for accessibility and advocate heavily in our day-to-day marketing