Background

The lack of accessibility in music software makes it difficult for those with visual impairments to control,  navigate and explore music systems for creators and curators such as our co-designer and client EB. He has years of experience as a DJ, music lover, and dancer and yet  his visual impairment has not stopped his drive for creating music playlists and fun experiences for himself, friends and family. We partnered with EB to co-design and create an accessible system that simplifies music access, playlist creation and device management to make the overall music experience more enjoyable. 

The study 

The purpose of this project was to co-design with people whose needs are underserved in UX design.We partnered with a visually impaired DJ to co-design an inclusive music app to simplify his day-to-day tasks. The participant has years of experience as a DJ, owns multiple laptops/phones to listen to music when at home and on the go and independently sets up his music system (hardware & software).

In this co-design study the participant was asked to participate remotely in one problem understanding interview (~60 minutes), one co-design session (~60 minutes), one final prototype feedback session (~40 minutes), meant to be lightweight and short. 

Each session was audio and video recorded to help us analyze the study data later. For the participant, the total time commitment for this study was about 3 hours.

Challenges discovered during problem understanding interview

1. Music libraries and playlist are dispersed across many platforms 

2. Entertaining and playing music for friends and family in various places requires tons of coordination 

3. Connecting and playing music from different devices and speakers can be buggy 

4. Access to in-app help center and submitting feedback on apps is not always accessible 

5. Unable to easily discover new app features 

Solutions 

After multiple rounds of testing and iterations we collectively identified these primary capabilities as must-haves for the accessible system. We prototyped and tested each solution with our participant along the way. 

1. Access to playlists from various music softwares on the home screen 

2. Entertain friends and family by streaming, playing and sharing music 

3. Submit feedback and easy access to customer help/support center

4. Integrate multiple music apps into one consolidated platform that supports a voice assistant

5. Play and switch music onto various bluetooth and speaker devices

It was important that we prototyped and tested each of the solutions with a voice assistant considering our participant often uses VoiceOver to navigate and complete tasks on his phones. A typical prototype in figma would not cut it. Therefore we recorded a script to simulate many of the inquiries and created a virtual assistant called mana’ to respond to questions. 

Final testing insights from co-designer DJ

1. Provide audio cues to yield closure once a task has been completed within the app (during testing)

2. Be attentive about the dialogue between the user and voice assistant, every detail matters 

3. Consider the capability for the AI to learn the users’ voice and only respond to them.