Scaling Online Media Accessibility

Company
3Play Media
Role
Product manager
Lead UXD & UXR
Team
3 developers, 2 data scientists, head of product, VP of engineering
Dates
Q4 2020 — Q3 2022
Summary
Multimedia is interwoven into many facets of everyday life, but for people with disabilities, online time-based media content is gated by the inconsistent and inadequate support from key audio and video players on the web. I led an effort to research, design, and build a robust online player extension to make online content more accessible and equitable to marginalized populations and individuals with disabilities.

Overview

Online audio and video content often excludes individuals with disabilities due to insufficient support from key players, widening the digital divide for marginalized communities.

The 3Play Access Player builder on a laptop next to a phone playing an accessible Airbnb video with an interactive transcript.

Over the course of year, I led design, research, and market validation for a new time-based media accessibility player. As of 2024, the 3Play Access Player is in closed beta with several top customers across key industries.

Background: About My Role

I assumed dual roles as product manager and design lead to develop new skills and gain product management experience. I led customer research, prioritized the feature roadmap, coordinated development, and designed the Access Player.

Although this setup wasn’t ideal, the extended timeline allowed me to focus on product management and research early on, deepening my understanding of how to design a fully accessible product with strong product-market fit in the online multimedia space.

Research

One of our primary goals was to gain a deeper understanding of the feedback from our existing customers and market, focusing on what users expected from online multimedia publishing and engagement.

Foundational

I crafted an open-ended research protocol that allowed us to explore a few key areas we were unfamiliar with:

  • General web accessibility needs
  • Existing publishing behavior and associated challenges
  • Industry trends and organizational structures
  • Audio and video user engagement analytics tracking
Affinity map of plugin needs grouped into categories such as accessibility, analytics, ease of use, cost and customization.
144 unique, affinitized needs extracted and coded from 24 open-ended user interviews

Survey and Segmentation

I designed and distributed a survey to refine the solution and quantify insights from customer interviews. It also helped determine optimal pricing, packaging, and mapped customer groups’ willingness-to-pay for feature bundles.

Customer personas grouped by high, medium and low priority alongside two plugin end-user personas.
Using a quantitative segmentation analysis, I worked with my data science team to construct six customer personas and two end-user personas based on rich quantitative data validated by findings from qualitative research.
Jobs-to-be-done charts plotting customer and end-user needs by impact and confidence.
From 144 customer needs, I mapped jobs to be done based on impact and confidence for customer and end user personas to help prioritize key initiatives.

Market Sizing and Pricing Analysis

The survey provided valuable data for pricing and packaging, using the Van Westendorp framework to define acceptable price ranges. I also developed a market sizing model and worked with our Head of Product on forecasting, presenting these scenarios to the Board for buy-in.

Van Westendorp pricing analysis table and chart with blurred values.

Design

Armed with a year’s worth of data, our team was confident in the market opportunity. I led the design phase, starting with initial concepts for testing with customers and end-users.

User Journey Map

One of the first steps was creating a user journey map, auditing the current process, future user actions, accessibility pain points, and back-end requirements. It also highlighted where variations might occur based on individual personas.

3Play Media plugin user journey map covering plugin creation and consumption stages.

Customer-Centered Prototyping

To resolve responsiveness issues we’ve heard from our customers around current solutions, we adopted a mobile-first approach for the initial design concepts. During the design of the admin plugin builder, we interviewed five customers and two end-users to gather feedback on six high-risk features. This feedback clarified practical use cases and shaped the product roadmap.

Wireframe of a mobile video player with an interactive transcript.
Wireframe of the transcript tab with search.
Wireframe of chapter search results.
Wireframe of search results for “accessibility” across descriptions and transcripts.
Wireframe of transcript search results with highlighted matches.
Access Player on a Chewy video about hamsters.
Access Player on an Airbnb video with a transcript in Thai.
Access Player on an ESPN basketball video.
Access Player on an MIT Infinite History video about Steve Jobs.

Designing for Real Use Cases

I designed a corresponding experience to support companies that didn’t require a custom-built solution, ensuring ease of adoption and long-term success. This included configuration screens that allowed businesses to customize and deploy the plugin on their own sites. One of the key challenges was translating complex technical requirements into a simple, intuitive UI that enabled companies to apply their own theming with minimal effort.

An Emphasis on Accessibility

Around this time, I pursued two certifications from the International Association of Accessibility Professionals (IAAP). Passing both exams equipped me with accessibility best practices, which informed my research and guided my designs for individuals with disabilities and assistive technology users.

Results

After finalizing the designs in March, we planned the Q2 2022 roadmap, mindful of our limited development resources. As of 2024, the 3Play Access Player is in closed beta with several top customers across key industries.