Entertainment for All: Understanding Media Streaming Accessibility

Despite the increased demand, popularity, and cultural significance of streaming media and digital entertainment, many individuals with disabilities are unable to experience this content. Specifically, many video streaming technologies require input devices and content browsers that are inaccessible to individuals with sensory and physical impairments and do not work with their current assistive technologies. Our team of engineers, designers, and clinicians took an inclusive approach to assessing and redesigning these streaming service products, with the aim of creating more universally accessible experiences. We recruited 9 participants with diverse abilities to evaluate the accessibility of a large telecommunication company's commercially available video streaming products. This evaluation revealed significant accessibility barriers and informed the design of a participatory design activity to create accessible remote-controls, an onboarding assistance prototype, and a content browsing prototype that is screen reader accessible and supports audio descriptions. We evaluated these accessible prototypes with 11 additional participants and found they were more accessible, flexible, and enjoyable to use compared to the off-the shelf products. In this paper we summarize these findings and discuss how future streaming technology must support customization and follow established accessibility guidelines and standards.