TV Accessible Initial Setup.
Initial Setup means first impressions, which are crucial in a product’s experience and creates a lasting memory of users’ relationship with the technology moving forward.
Role: Lead Product and UX Designer
Team: UX Researchers, Product Managers, Hardware Engineers, Software Engineers, Visual Brand Designers, 3rd Party Developers, QA, Partner Android TV SW Team at Google.
Problem
Home Visits, field studies and extended research with people with disabilities highlighted that blind and low vision users wanted a means of independently using their TV after unboxing. They wanted to avoid any social cost and not rely on a sighted individual to help them. This included being able to set it up on their own (via a screen reader).
Solution
The TV needed a means of being able to turn on the TV screen reader at the very beginning of initial setup, rather than relying on someone else to complete setup for them and then turn on screen reader and audio guidance. This meant creating a method for blind users to turn on screen reader without adding cognitive load for sighted users and creating frustration early on.
Impact:
Designed a new multimodal initial setup experience and tutorial to improve accessibility, balancing both disabled and non-disabled user needs– shipped in FY21, available on FY22 Sony TV models