Twitter adds accessibility features to its progressive web app (PWA).
The April list of updates was released, and it includes a fair amount of improvements. The Twitter PWA is the default experience on web browsers these days, as well as on the Windows 10 app and Chrome OS.
Behavior and features
Twitter is improving the UI for managing multiple Twitter accounts, a feature that was added back in June of last year. Direct Message reactions, a recent addition to the PWA, are also now displayed as selected under the respective message. For accessibility, focus rings around selected components will now use the chosen primary color.
The updates also include a long list of updated behavior for existing features in the app. Accessibility seems to be a focus in the latest changelog, with improvements to screen readers and VoiceOver features:
Accessibility:
The GIF search gallery now provides accessibility labels for GIFs returned by searching. These labels will be read out by screen readers, providing additional context for search results.
Accessibility:
Improved accessibility in poll components. Voiceover will now read the selected choice properly. Fixed text color when in high contrast mode.
Composer:
Inline feedback errors when composing will now provide a “Learn more” link if there’s additional information.
Keyboard Shortcuts:
Improved KB shortcuts for screen accessibility.
Timeline:
We’ve made some density and visibility improvements to timeline surfaces.
User Profile:
When your date of birth is set to be visible to “only you,” it will no longer show up when you navigate to your own profile page.
Finally, there’s a pretty significant list of fixes made to various parts of the experience, including zooming improvements on touch devices and more:
Accessibility:
When a Tweet is focused, the “U” keyboard shortcut will mute the Tweet.
Composer:
Moving your cursor off a username or hashtag will now properly close the typeahead or autocomplete dropdown if it was open.
Composer:
Videos added to the composer which generate an error state will now properly clear the banner when removed.
Dialogs:
Confirmation dialogs will now consistently show titles and text.
DMs:
Reaction summary sheet will now properly render at lower resolutions.
Home Timeline:
The inline composer on the home timeline will now display in both widescreen and narrow screen size configurations.
Media:
We’ve improved zooming and panning of media on touch devices.
Media:
Media controls will now be shown properly when you’ve hidden them and then zoomed back out on touch devices.
Text:
Fixed instances where the text size was being set to the smallest value.
Topics:
The login sheet that’s displayed when attempting to follow a Topic while logged out will now display text content correctly.
Tweets:
Emojis added to Tweets via the emoji picker will be saved properly as part of the Tweet draft.
Tweets:
If you’ve muted a user, re-tweets of their tweets will now be immediately removed from your timeline.
Video:
Addressed player crashing when attempting to replay.
User Avatar:
Fixed an issue where avatar borders and backgrounds were not displaying correctly.
User Profile:
Blank usernames that are populated with the user’s @ handle will now be styled consistently.
User Profile:
The name field will no longer auto populate when editing your profile.
These updates tend to roll out gradually and at different times, so you may see some of these changes right away, some of them might have been available for a while now, and others might not have shown up yet. Regardless, they should be available in the near future.
