Telegram and Digital Blindness: the accessibility challenges that remain unresolved
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Telegram is one of the most popular messaging apps in the world. Its focus on privacy, speed, and customization makes it a powerful tool for millions of people. However, behind all these virtues, there is a group of users who face enormous barriers to using it normally: people with visual disabilities.
A few days ago, a blind user commented in a group that Telegram was difficult to use with TalkBack, while other apps like WhatsApp work perfectly for him.
What is TalkBack?
In case you didn’t know, TalkBack is an accessibility service (also known as a screen reader) for Android that reads aloud what appears on screen. This way, blind people can know which element is selected and navigate through apps using gestures. On Apple devices, there is an equivalent alternative called VoiceOver, which serves the same purpose within the iOS ecosystem.
Now, for screen readers like TalkBack or VoiceOver to work properly, developers must label each button or option in the interface. If they don't, the reader simply says "Unlabeled" or, worse, detects nothing. This turns simple tasks like navigating the interface or taking a photo into a challenge or something outright inaccessible.
App issues
In Telegram's case, these issues repeat throughout various parts of the app. Below, I share a summary of the most important problems we have identified so far. It's important to note that these are just a few examples—there are many more, but I focused on what I consider the most critical ones.
Content recognition in messages:
TalkBack does not detect key elements in messages such as usernames, links and hyperlinks, hashtags, phone numbers, or email addresses. This prevents blind users from interacting with them, like opening a link or saving a contact.
Issues with previews and interaction buttons:
Currently, TalkBack only correctly recognizes contact previews. In contrast, link previews—whether external or internal Telegram links (like posts, channels, or groups)—are not detected or accessible. Moreover, several buttons next to these previews are also not recognized by TalkBack, such as Quick View (reported since October 2023), View Message, View Channel, View Group, or Send Message. This severely limits navigation and interaction within chats.
Actions on long-pressing the send button:
Functions associated with a long press of the send button have stopped working properly with TalkBack. This affects useful actions like sending without sound, scheduling a message, setting a reminder, or choosing a message effect in private chats.
Currently, this action is only available in a very specific case: the album view from the attachment menu. In all other contexts, TalkBack does not allow access to any of them. It’s worth noting that this feature used to be accessible but stopped working after an update.
Inaccessible In-App Browser and Instant View
Both the in-app browser and Instant View articles are completely unusable with TalkBack. When opening an Instant View article or a webpage within Telegram's internal browser, TalkBack continues to detect the content from the chat where the link was opened. As a result, the user cannot navigate or interact with the newly displayed content on the screen.
Incorrect screen recognition when viewing stories:
When opening a story and attempting to navigate through the interface elements using gestures (for example, to find the "Reply privately" checkbox or the "React" button), TalkBack does not correctly recognize the story content. Instead of reading the elements on that screen, it starts detecting and reading elements from Telegram’s main interface. This prevents access to the available story options and makes their use extremely difficult.
In the interface for capturing stories, TalkBack only recognizes a few elements, such as the back button and the flash toggle button. Other elements, like the dual camera button or the collage button, are not labeled, but at least can be toggled via gestures. However, key elements are not detected at all and are therefore inaccessible: the shutter button, buttons to switch between photo and video, the front camera, and access to the gallery.
Although at first it seemed that publishing a story was not possible, I discovered that it can be done by swiping up and then selecting the photo or video from the gallery, which is followed by a confirmation that says "Enabled." However, this action is not indicated anywhere in the interface, which makes it extremely difficult to discover and use independently for users who rely on TalkBack.
In the story editing menu, when recording a round video (by swiping up on the record button without holding it), the recording starts, but you need to long-press to end the recording instead of a single tap. Additionally, the field to write a description does not work properly, as it can only be used with a long press on the send button instead of a single tap. In that same interface, several buttons are not labeled correctly; TalkBack only identifies them as "Button," without providing information about their function.
Accessibility issues in the settings menu:
Within Telegram’s settings menu, some functions like Send a Gift, FAQs, and Privacy Policy open correctly, but TalkBack remains anchored to the main menu and does not allow interaction with the new content. In the case of FAQs and Privacy Policy, which are essentially web pages within the app, TalkBack does not work at all, not even recognizing the back button, leaving the user stuck without navigation options.
Image description limitations:
Although the image description feature is available in Telegram, when opening an image in expanded view TalkBack does not recognize it as an on-screen element. As a result, you cannot access the description or perform any other action related to the image, rendering this feature completely useless.
Lack of ad identification in channels:
TalkBack does not inform the user that certain messages in channels are ads. Instead, it starts reading the content as if it were a regular post, without marking any difference. This can lead to confusion and makes it difficult for users to know when they are viewing an advertisement.
We believe the most sensible approach would be for TalkBack to either not detect ads or for them to be clearly identified and better interpreted—especially considering that, in many cases, these ads appear in languages the user does not understand.
The field to add a description to an image or video is not directly accessible with TalkBack. It can only be used by long-pressing the send button, which is not intuitive at all. Furthermore, when long-pressing the send button, other options should appear, but this does not happen. Also, the button that allows you to choose whether the description appears above or below the media content is not detected, which prevents personalizing this setting independently.
A large number of buttons in the Telegram interface are not labeled. Additionally, some buttons, although functional, are detected by TalkBack simply as "Button," without providing useful information about their function, making them unusable. In other cases, they are not detected at all, as if they were not part of the interface, which severely limits the navigation and accessibility of the app.
The blind user mentioned at the beginning of this article told us that, at times, he has to disable TalkBack and try to press the button himself (only those he knows the location of, like the story camera shutter). When he can't, he has to ask someone nearby for help to perform the action.
The user mentioned it would be useful to add an option to receive an audio confirmation when starting a voice message recording and when it is sent, since he sometimes doesn’t know whether the action was executed correctly or not.
Conclusion
These observations are not meant to criticize for the sake of criticizing, but to contribute from the real experience of those who use TalkBack daily. Accessibility should not be an extra, but a fundamental part of the design of any app that aims to be universal.
With over one billion active users monthly, an app like Telegram has the responsibility to be more accessible and inclusive for people with visual disabilities.
Hopefully, the development team will take these observations into account to improve the experience for all its users. In the meantime, from our communities, we will continue to help one another, share solutions, and highlight what still needs improvement.
This issue does not seem to be a priority for Telegram, as there have been reports for years through various channels and many of them remain unresolved. It is important to consider that, as Telegram incorporates new features, they must be properly identified in the interface so that screen readers can interpret them correctly.
The existence of this problem is evident—so much so that some third-party developers have taken the initiative to improve accessibility on their own. One example is Blindgram, an alternative Telegram client developed specifically for people with visual disabilities. This app includes settings and features designed to facilitate navigation using screen readers like TalkBack, making it a very useful tool for those who face barriers in the official app.
It is worth noting that this mention is not sponsored or for advertising purposes. We simply believe it is important to highlight initiatives that aim to solve a problem that should already be addressed by the platform's main development team.
We need your help
If you use TalkBack or are interested in improving Telegram's accessibility, we ask that you support these requests by voting positively on the following links from Telegram's official bug and suggestion reporting platform. Each vote helps raise awareness of these issues and increases the chances that the development team will address them:
We also invite you to support other reports related to TalkBack and VoiceOver created by other Telegram users, available at the following links:
- https://bugs.telegram.org/?sort=rate&query=talkback
- https://bugs.telegram.org/?sort=rate&query=VoiceOver
Your participation is key to making Telegram more inclusive for everyone ;)