by Daniel Parker, RDPFS Intern
The professional social networking website LinkedIn has recently announced seven major updates due to roll out this year, as they do annually. The first three updates on their summary list have to do with accessibility. First, LinkedIn will now be generating automatic captions for videos. Currently available only in English, you can also add or edit captions before uploading. This is in addition to the high contrast features already included in the app for users with low vision. Second, the site will be standardizing job titles for professionals in the accessibility field. This will help these professionals become more easily noticed and allow companies to search for those who meet their accessibility needs. Finally, LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager, an advertisement creation tool, will now allow users to add alt text explicitly to images in their ads. This will permit screen readers to describe these images to users who are blind or have low vision, although the alt text is not automatically generated. The effectiveness of the new functionality will, of course, depend on advertisers’ knowledge and conscientious use of it. Articles such as our source will help increase awareness. The last four updates on the list had to do with more general improvements such as scheduled posts, enhancements to content analytics, and changes to the job and product searches. You can read more in this article from Search Engine Journal on new updates to LinkedIn in 2023.
