Voice Tweet Was A Thing
Until Twitter forgot that there are 466 million people with hearing loss
I finally saw, the new feature everyone on Twitterverse was talking back in June 2020, which feels like a very long time ago. I guess that’s what the pandemic does to everyone. We have become excited about a new thing, and move to the next new thing. We want this year to be over, #Cancel2020.
When I first saw the icon with waves on my twitter app, I remember the hype surrounding the new feature back in summer. I am still excited to try it and made my first voice tweet. What else can I say, but “Hello, Twitter!”
I reached out to Matt Navarra on Twitter, I asked what he thinks of voice tweets, He tweeted back, “I like them but forget to use them!”
New features are hard to roll out, even today there is no edit Tweet button and that may never happen. Jack Dorsey says, “You really won’t get an edit Tweet Button!”
Accessibility Issue
The problem with voice tweets is not in its novelty. If it was done right, it could have been the best new feature to come out from Twitter. This year, more than ever we need to stay connected, and what better way than for us to hear the human voice.
One thing that Twitter forgot, is accessibility. People with hearing loss account for 5% of the world population, that’s 466 million people worldwide.
Accessibility shouldn’t be an afterthought. Especially for a tech company as big as Twitter, but mistakes happen to the best of us. I am passionate about accessibility as an issue, and I have written the use of Facebook alt text as a way to help people with visual impairment to ‘see’ photos on social media.
Needless to say, the backlash was quick. The conversation about the company being tone-deaf happened where else, but on Twitter.
The Americans With Disabilities Act was signed into law 30 years ago,” “Federal law requires accessibility from the start. You don’t, as a matter of civil rights law, get to roll out an inaccessible feature and then, only later, make it accessible.” — Matthew Cortland tweets.
Making Twitter More Accessible
It also revealed that a multi-billion-dollar company like Twitter has no accessibility teams in place only volunteers, hashtag #awkward.
We are at a time in our history when we should be more inclusive. When people need to feel they belong and not to feel isolated.
Twitter is making progress. They have listened and now in the process of building two new accessibility teams to address the issue, which will focus specifically on the features and products on Twitter.
- The Accessibility Center of Excellence and;
- The Experience Accessibility Team
As the company tweeted, We’ll keep going #UntilWeAllBelong.
Voice tweets may still be a thing or will soon find its way in the Twitter grave of dead features. For now, only IOS users have this new feature. Twitter said Android phone users will have to wait until 2021 before they can make their first voice tweet. #Ouch
Again, excluding people at a time of the pandemic, and you get more people hurt with your business decisions.
I still see great potential with voice tweets. Remember how Twitter changed the way we blog. On Twitter, we microblog, with 140 characters or less, people can amplify issues like #blacklivesmatter.
Voice tweets can change the way we do podcasts, again with 140 seconds or less, we can micro podcast.
I still believe in the power of words, and if we add our voice to our tweets, it could change the way we use Twitter.
This is a year when we lost the power of touch because of the pandemic, but we don’t need to lose our other senses. Voice tweets may fill in the gap. Letting our voices be heard, even in our tweets, can help us cope with what is happening in our world right now.
