Improving TikTok’s Accessibility
By: Nadia Karizat
Tags: UX Design, Content Creation, Tiktok, Accessibility, Usability

This project was completed for my Introduction to Accessibility Course at the University of Michigan School of Information. It explores accessibility barriers to consuming content on short-form video platforms for users with visual impairments and those who are deaf and hard of hearing (DHH). Drawing from existing research on online user-generated content (UGC), disability, and media and social app accessibility for users with visual impairments and/or those who are DHH, I reflect on accessibility issues common to short-form video platforms, current efforts to produce accessible content and critique the current design of the popular short-form video platform TikTok through an accessibility lens. This critique informs the proposed design changes that may lend platforms like TikTok to supporting the creation of more accessible UGC. It is important to note that due to the time constraints of this final project, I was unable to personally interview and learn from users of TikTok who are part of the disability community about their experiences on the platform and preferences for improving accessibility. As a result, the recommendations for design changes to TikTok are based on my own interpretation of prior research and our courses’ materials, and any action should not be taken without consulting with and centering those who these changes aim to serve.

User-Generated Content (UGC) is content produced by “regular people who voluntarily contribute data, information, or media that then appears before others in a useful or entertaining way” [12], such as content seen on online platforms like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. YouTube serves as an example of a popular online video site with a mix of both UGC, as well as the increasingly prevalent professionally-generated content (PGC) such as television programs [9]. With the widespread prevalence of smartphones and creation of video-sharing mobile apps, like Snapchat, a new wave of visual-short form UGC has emerged [16], further made possible by platforms like TikTok or through additions to existing platforms like Instagram’s recent introduction of Instagram Reels [7]. TikTok and Instagram Reels both serve a similar function: sharing short videos (0 to 60 seconds long) to an audience, as well as providing its content creators with a built-in video editing tool and the ability to add music, text, filters, etc. to content [7,16].

While federal legislation in the U.S. has been passed to improve media accessibility, such as the Communication and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA) that required video programmers and distributors to provide closed captioning for online videos that have been aired on television, as well as the expansion of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to ensure the accessibility of online services in 2010 [17], regular people who produce UGC are not regulated or required to make their content accessible, and they may experience a lack of resources, tools or knowledge to produce accessible content [3]. As a result, people with disabilities may find themselves unable to consume and/or access UGC. Common accessibility barriers to consume UGC for users with visual impairments and those who are DHH include: lack of captions [14], lack of descriptions such as alt-text or video descriptions [2,4], low quality video (such as bad lighting) [14], etc. While prior research has explored existing efforts and new technological and design affordances that can improve UGC accessibility [2,4,13,14], these accessibility barriers remain a persistent problem.

Platforms containing UGC, like TikTok, can change to remove these barriers and allow for the intentional inclusion of people excluded from fully participating and engaging with content. The social model of disability perceives disability as something imposed on individuals due to the design and development of systems that do not account for the needs and existence of people with impairments, such as visual or DHH [6]. Applying this model to TikTok and other short-form video platforms, disability is the result of design that does not aim to include users with different needs and results in some users being unable to consume UGC in ways that are meaningful. Understanding that the design of systems renders some users unable to participate necessitates the re-imagining of entire systems and technologies.

While accessibility barriers on TikTok have not been studied in academic spaces, to my knowledge, there have been critiques of the platform’s design in regards to accessibility in the popular press [10,15]. These critiques range from highlighting the low color contrast for text captions that overlay on videos [10] to insufficient closed captions [15]. Unlike YouTube with an automatic captioning system that can then be edited [3], TikTok does not offer a built-in captioning feature [15], forcing content creators who wish to caption their videos to use outside sources to add captions or to go through the tedious process of manually writing out captions by adding text to their video one line at a time. Both options require users to have knowledge of closed captions as well as the skills and time to create them. Additionally, TikTok does not offer any audio video descriptions or alt-text to allow for users with visual impairments access to “narrative descriptions…[of] key visual elements…to form a mental picture of what is occurring on the screen” [5].

Exploring how end users produce accessible UGC online, Kuksenok et. al. found that having the tools to produce accessible content on a platform is not enough to ensure accessibility [13]. There also needs to be a community culture that values and supports its members in producing accessible content alongside “a combination of automated and active support for accessibility [that] can enable end users to meet accessibility goals, as they define them” [13]. This could look like built-in features allowing for quick access to tools that produce accessible content, providing prompts that guide and encourage users to utilize features that improve accessibility, etc. Additionally, in order to create a community culture that encourages accessible UGC, short-form video platforms could draw from the interdependence framework for designing for accessibility [1] and work to create ways that help users visualize and think about their relationships with others on the platforms with and without disability in order to co-create accessibility of UGC, such as by encouraging and allowing users to collaboratively create or edit captions [2] or alternative text for any video that would then be approved by the content creator before the changes go live.

With an understanding of accessibility barriers impacting the consumption of visual UGC on short-form video platforms, my proposed design changes to TikTok aim to improve accessibility for users with visual impairments and/or those who are DHH. Looking at TikTok, as an example of a short-form video platform, these design changes address three primary accessibility issues, including:

the lack of built-in app support for the creation and inclusion of closed captions, and alternative text descriptions, the platform’s passive role in encouraging a community culture that values accessible UGC creation, the absence of design that prominently celebrates and values accessibility,

in order to provide TikTok’s users with the tools and guides they need to produce accessible content, along with actively working to create a culture that celebrates and encourages accessible UGC creation. The prototype for my design can be found here.