Instagram shares an update on improving accessibility

Instagram highlights developments made to improve the accessibility of the app experience, especially for screen-reader users, and underlines the progress made.

Instagram mentions that a significant part of accessibility development on the platform revolves around improving the experience of users using screen readers. Visually impaired users or ones with limited mobility would also have a constructive effect on their experience, which is affected by accessibility units.

The platform initiated the development with an all-encompassing approach that considers how all users use Instagram and prioritize surfaces that are most interacted with, and started with Feed. To focus on maintaining the 'quick scroll through' experience and not delay swiping up from one post to another, Instagram optimized a few different elements.

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To enable screen-reader users to skip over irrelevant posts that they're not interested in, Instagram has changed the order of labels and aggregated labels such as the author, type of post (image or video), and a description of the post, to increase the relevancy of information and maintain swift navigation.

The platform also reduced the swipe time between posts and the number of gestures it takes to jump to one post from another from 30 to 2. To sustain the quick exploration, Instagram reduced the focus hierarchy to represent each post with two elements: the media and the post actions.

All main post actions such as Like, Comment, Send Post and Save have been moved into one bottom sheet, which can also be accessed via custom actions on iOS. This change counters the effect of UI element grouping that maintains the focus hierarchy with two main elements but removes post-actions.