Spotify has announced three new accessibility updates coming to iOS and Android in the coming weeks, the most interesting of which is likely to be a new automatic transcription feature for podcasts so users can read the shows.
Spotify announced today that the company will be rolling out some big accessibility changes to its platform in the coming weeks. In a blog post, it said:
Spotify is part of the lives of more than 356 million people around the world - and we know that many of our users have different accessibility needs. We're constantly working to improve accessibility so that many of our users can enjoy the songs and podcasts they love even more easily. That's why today we're introducing three updates to Spotify on iOS and Android: buttons with improved readability, options to resize text, and a beta version for podcast transcripts.
Spotify Podcast Transcriptions: Probably the Biggest Innovation
The changes bring new buttons with different colors, text formatting, and sizes that make it easier for low-vision and visually impaired users to "recognize and use these actions when using Spotify on their phones." It also introduces a larger text size, available in iOS's settings, that allows users to change the app's font size. The last and arguably biggest change is podcast transcripts:
In the coming weeks, we'll also be rolling out auto-generated podcast transcripts. This is a limited beta for select Spotify Original and Exclusive podcasts on iOS and Android. The new feature will automatically generate transcripts for these shows, allowing users to read the text of each podcast on their phone, either with or without sound. Users will also be able to quickly scroll and navigate through specific episodes and click on any paragraph of writing to start playback from that point.
The full announcement can here can be taken. (Photo by ezphoto / Bigstockphoto)
