Completed for the Solve for One accessibility hackthon, this project centered around the question: how can we simplify media player interfaces for users with cognitive disabilities?
The Situation
Our team chose to focus on a challenge facing a specific girl – Siobhan O’Connor – who has difficulty using existing music and video apps. She is non-vocal, has significant cognitive disabilities, and some balance and fine-motor skill issues. Yet she understands her surroundings, understands what is spoken to her and can communicate with the aid of her speech-generating device. She loves playing music and videos on her iPad, but recent updates to software have made it difficult for her to do so independently.
TASK
Create an intuitive solution that allows users like Siobhan to play music and videos on a tablet with ease.
PAIN POINTS
Existing apps use very small buttons, unnecessary features for those with different cognitive abilities, and require multiple steps and screens for basic playback. Her caretakers must be actively involved for her to use these apps.
The Goal - simplicity
After reviewing her pain points and interviewing Siobhan’s parents (her primary caretakers) and several other people who are differently disabled or knowledgeable about accessibility, we realized simplicity was going to be our biggest goal and our biggest challenge. We made the following goals for our solution:
- Simple interface – unnecessary features cause confusion
- Large, icon based buttons – makes accessible for those with motor skill impairment and difficulty reading
- One flow pattern to learn, used across media types – lessens cognitive strain to learn and use
- Autonomy for both user and caretakers – recognizes both users’ desire for independence
- Accessible across disabilities – allows this solution to be used for others, and is best practice
The Design Process
FEATURE SET
USER FLOW
WIREFRAMES
We sketched many versions of the interface before ultimately landing on these. These layouts allowed the largest tapable area and included only the necessary functions. They allowed for features that caretakers would need – such as theme setup and song lists – presented in a way that would make it hard for the primary user to accidentally stumble their way into. We then brought our wireframes into Sketch and began to build visuals.
ACCESSIBILITY
(my role)
Having talked with many people working in the accessibility space, I knew that many applications that work to be inclusive of a certain disability are often exclusive of others out of ignorance. So I made sure a large number of accessibility needs could still be met in our design, allowing it to help a larger number of people.
Accessibility Features:
- Colorblind safe colors
- High contrast – for low vision users
- All gesture controls also had tap buttons – ease for cognitive disability
- Screen reader compatibility – simplicity is easier for screen readers too, but icon based design can forget them
- Haptic feedback – for low/no vision users
THEMES
(my role)
Siobhan, like many people with cognitive disabilities, develops fascinations with certain things she likes. For Siobhan, it’s trains and cows. But when she wants to see videos about trains, she must use her communicator to say “I want train” and her caretaker must queue train videos up on YouTube for her. This happens every time. So our team included a “Themes” option in our app that would allow the caretaker to create playlists of videos – of both their own and YouTube – that could be saved and accessed independently by Siobhan. When the team downsized part way through the hackathon, I took responsibility for completing the Themes section and explaining it’s importance during our presentation.
The Prototype
(my role)
Online here.
The Presentation
FIRST PLACE
At the end of the day we presented our design by giving a walk through of both the music and theme setup flows using our prototype to a panel of four judges. The judges praised our simplicity and inclusions of features that would allow more users with a broader range of abilities to benefit as well. We were critiqued on a few of our navigation buttons, which need to be higher contrast and offered ideas for future road-map development.
Siobhan’s primary caretakers were excited about the design, and stated that it would truly be helpful to Siobhan. We were awarded first place in the Solve for One Hackathon competition.
