LinkedIn launches new product updates & resources to improve accessibility

LinkedIn celebrates National Disability Employment Awareness month with new product updates.

To celebrate and support National Disability Employment Awareness month, LinkedIn brings new product updates and resources to improve accessibility for all of its 850 million members and spurs the conversation around building inclusive, equitable workplaces everywhere. 

Conversations on accessibility

Accessibility in the workplace is an important conversation globally. LinkedIn has seen a 33% year-on-year increase in people sharing insights, ideas, and problem-solving together related to accessibility. LinkedIn’s data shows that these job postings have spiked 171% since September 2019, indicating that companies are actively not only talking about this but taking action to hire accessibility specialists that can help them create products and services that work for everyone.

Standardized accessibility job titles 

LinkedIn recognizes the importance of roles across the accessibility industry that ensure experiences and products are more inclusive, and now it identifies those jobs through standardized job titles. This is valuable because standardized job titles help you get discovered for opportunities and more easily find opportunities that match your skills. Simply selecting a standardized accessibility job title in the experience section of your profile, or within the Open to Work section, will signal your interest in this area to recruiters and the broader LinkedIn community.

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Showcase skills and identity

Earlier this year, LinkedIn partnered with Richard Branson and Made By Dyslexia to launch Dyslexic Thinking as a recognized skill that members can add to their profiles. Through their research, LinkedIn learned that dyslexic thinkers are often able to simplify complex products or tasks and see connections that others may miss. This example showcases that disability can also be viewed as a strength and meaningful differentiator. LinkedIn is asking its members to voluntarily self-identify on disability and other demographic dimensions. More than 10 million members have shared some aspect of their identity with LinkedIn.

Improved video accessibility

The platform is rolling out auto-captions to make video content more accessible to those who are deaf, hard of hearing, or prefer to watch videos with the sound off. When you upload a video on LinkedIn, captions will be automatically generated for you (English-only for now). Viewers can also turn on high contrast when watching videos on the app, which will adjust the colors to improve accessibility for those with low vision or visual disabilities.

Alternative Text Functionality 

With the introduction of alternative text (alt-text) functionality in the campaign manager, advertisers can now add text descriptions to the image uploaded to image ads, so that it is viewable to all members. LinkedIn will roll out this update allowing blind or visually impaired members to make sense of the imagery being presented.

Accessibility Learning Opportunities

LinkedIn is helping its members build skills in the accessibility field as it is critical to scaling the impact of accessibility. The platform is expanding the LinkedIn Learning library, its newest course by instructor Chimmy Kalu is Practical Accessibility for Designers, which takes an in-depth look at how to design and build accessible experiences.