Talking Guide
The Story
The accessible user can be a forgotten user when it comes to designing for TV. Most of the time people tend to design for themselves and forget the needs of others. Although visually impaired or blind people may not seem like the type that would 'watch' TV, they are a part of a group that does invest in this type of entertainment.
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The Ask: Create a feature for the accessibility user with visibility issues to make it easier for them to move around the STB and find things to watch.
Project Details
ROLE: UX/UI Designer
TOOLS: Excel, JIRA, Phototshop
The Research
We did extensive research to understand what the FCC mandates were, what areas of the STB that was going to be affected along with who we were building for.
Who are we building this feature for?
Accessibility allows for control functions to be locatable, identifiable, and operable by those:
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• without vision
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• with no vision and limited or no hearing
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• with little or no color perception
What are the FFC Mandates and what screens are affected?
FCC Mandated Control Functions
The Affected DIRECTV Screens
• Channel/program selection
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• Display channel/program information
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• Configuration – setup
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• Configuration – CC control
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• Configuration – CC options
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• Configuration – video description control
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• Display configuration info
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• Playback functions
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• Input selection (Not in Scope)
• Live TV & Channel tuning
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• Channel Banner
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• Trick-play control
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• Guide
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• Info Pages
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• Recordings
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• Menu
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• Smart Search
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• Settings & Help
What are our options?
Competitors we looked at.
From the evaluation, there were two directions:
Use Case 1
Visually make items on screen bigger when option is selected by the user.
Use Case 2
Screen talks to user, depending where they go or what they do.
Design Approach
• Determine which of the two directions would help enhance current experience. (We went for Use Case 2)
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• Determine speech models that could be used in multiple areas
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• Create flows and test
The Breakdown and Iterations
We started with breaking down each screen to possible templates of how it could be read.
Where am I?
What am I interacting with?
What shortcuts are available?
Generic Speech Model
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Channel
Content
Hints
Payment State
Time State
Guide Speech Model
Screen
Content
Hints
Nav. Menu
Time State
Content Header
Channel
Payment State
Menu Speech Model
From there I started creating the different scenarios from each section to see how each template held up.
User Testing and Updates
User testing was done with various users with visual disabilities. The overall view of the product was well received with a few adjustments to certain areas.
Before Testing
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After Testing
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The Final Product
The design is out on current products and is constantly being updated due to the updates being added to the app.
