Instagram is working towards becoming more accessible to all users. The platform is rolling out a captioning feature for Stories, which will automatically transcribe your speech.
You Will Soon Be Able to Transcribe Your Instagram Stories
Social media consultant, Matt Navarra, took the wraps off of Instagram’s upcoming auto-captioning feature, noting that “you can now auto-caption videos in Stories with a range of different styles.” He sent out a Tweet showing how it might work:
NEW! @Instagram has added a ‘Captions’ sticker for Stories
You can now auto-caption videos in stories with a range of different styles… pic.twitter.com/cijk7nWGC3
— 🟣 Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) March 9, 2021
The auto-captioning feature acts just like a typical sticker you’d place on your Story. But instead of pasting a sticker that decoratively displays your current location or a specific hashtag, the captioning sticker will automatically convert your voice to text.
To find the captioning sticker, simply capture your Story, and hit the Sticker icon like you normally would. Search for “captions” in the search bar and you’ll see an option that reads “CC Captions.”
After selecting the sticker, Instagram will automatically transcribe the audio in your Story. Instagram will even let you choose from different font styles for your captions, including typewriter-style text, or something a little bolder.
Going off of the video that Navarra provided, it looks like the auto-captioning feature is fairly accurate. It only made one mistake—instead of transcribing “finally,” the auto-captioning feature identified it as “find.”
The captions sticker will only make Instagram more accessible, as it will benefit users who are hard of hearing. In addition, it may even come in handy for non-English speakers, or for people who just prefer to watch videos with the sound off.
Instagram hasn’t stated when exactly this feature will be rolled out, so it might be some time until we see the captions sticker actually appear on the app.
Other platforms, like Twitter, have already taken the steps towards automatic transcriptions. Twitter faced backlash after it released a Voice Tweet feature without providing automatic transcriptions for hard-of-hearing users. The platform has since promised to incorporate automatic transcription, but there’s still no word when this will be done.
Making Instagram More Accessible
It’s important for social networks to embrace accessibility features, especially platforms as large as Instagram. Failing to include certain features, like automatic captions and text enlargement options, can make it that much harder for a user with a disability to access.
It looks like Instagram is taking a step in the right direction in terms of accessibility. Hopefully, seeing Instagram’s launch of a caption sticker will make Twitter work even faster to roll out automatic transcription for Voice Tweets.