REVERB by David Pacheco Garcia

Context/Background

Reverb Overview

Reverb is a plug-in program for popular learning management systems (LMS), such as Canvas or Blackboard, to help educators provide an inclusive learning environment.

Reverb is part of a month long collaboration effort between C-HEAR and SMU for the certification in User Experience Design program.
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Responsibilites

Designed viable business recommendations for C-HEAR.
Conducted user interviews.
Designed CHIF prototype mockup.
Designed visual identity and artifacts for presentation.

Context Continued

Who is C-HEAR?

Founded in 2015 with the mission to "bring product designers and developers to the table to identify new solutions to accessibility issues."

C-HEAR are also creators of the CHIF file format - a universal data container.
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What is a CHIF?

Advantages of CHIF.

Edits made to an original CHIF updates any copies that live anywhere on the web.
CHIF is able to house multiple media types within itself.
CHIF provides the owner file flexibility and ownership.

Problem/Challenge

CHIF technology in the higher education space.

Where/How can CHIF be implemented to find more opportunities for C-HEAR to continue their mission to improve and provide accessibility solutions.

Solution

Recommendations for C-HEAR

Scroll for full process
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Research

The current state of C-HEAR and CHIF.

C-HEAR is dedicated to improving accessibility with CHIF serving as new technology that can help in that effort. Currently, their efforts are creating tension with business goals and holding the full potential of CHIF back.
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Finding a usage for CHIF that would benefit the business goals as well as provide accessibility needs to the the wider audience was our initial goal.
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The current state of the higher education industry.

With COVID-19 pushing the demand for more distance learning technology, we believed the higher education industry was a market C-HEAR could tap into.
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Our research largely focused on the higher education industry and their efforts into accessibility funding.

20%

Of college undergraduates have a disability.
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$13.2B

Is spent on education technology in the US.
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80%

Of college students in the US are distance learning.
(Since COVID-19)

8.6%

Increase in education technology every year for the past 5 years.

Stakeholder Map

Reviewing relationships.

We wanted to know a little more about C-HEAR and how they operated their business. Below is what was revealed about this exercise.

Key Findings

Things commonly expressed amongst the teams were...

Expanding the team - Build relationships between products and user development and sales.
Marketing the product - "What is the CHIF?" and "why do i want to buy it?"
Money - Funding

The stakeholder map revealed that there were key relationships that needed to be reinforced for the betterment of the company. The one we, as a team, decided to improve upon was the relationship between C-HEAR and the consumer/end user.

A greater connection between the product (CHIF) and the users would need to be established for C-HEAR's success. But what are our users' needs? This would be explored in the next phase.

Empathy Map

How would our users feel?

To better understand what our users might feel, think, say or do when dealing with a stressful situation, we used an empathy map to gain insight. We did this exercise with the help of C-HEAR.
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Empathy Map Scenario

Jennifer Smith is a 25 year old student with ADHD and is trying to organize her catalog of photos.
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Empathy Map Results

The empathy map identified 35 data points. We then studied the patterns and clustered them into 4 themes - Stress, Work Arounds, Information Overload, and Uncertainty.

Based on these pain points we decided to interview potential users of CHIF that had accessibility needs.

User Interviews

First hand experience.

After the empathy map, the next step was to validate and familiarize ourselves with someone who does live with accessibility issues. I was able to interview someone who is blind. Several questions were used as a starting point but after establishing rapport it became more of a conversation. Due to privacy issues, the interviewee will simply be known as Marco.
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Brand Loyalty - Apple doesn't charge extra for accessibility features that Marco uses. Other products that Marco has tried throughout his lifetime and has had a good user experience with have ended support or charge extra. This has made Marco a loyal customer due to Apple's continual development and support for their accessibility features.
Independence - COVID-19 was making it difficult for people that were blind to ask for help as people were in full social distancing mode. "The pandemic made one of the things that we relied on, a bit harder to access."
Inequality - Marco experienced some discrimination from professors as coursework was not readily available to him, causing him to fall back in class.
Technology - Being blind, Marco relies on transcribed material for his screenreader to process. When trying to access the material for his classes he was given a PDF. The screenreader sees this as an image and is incompatible with his screenreader. Being a student at SMU, he was able to get someone at the library to transcribe the necessary material but this would take some time. The common complaint he receives as to why material isn't transcribed is the time consuming nature as well as the unfamiliarity with technology that people with accessibility issues may need.

Key takeaways

In order for CHIF to be successful, features used by "fringe" or "extreme" users would have to be made mainstream. Not only would new users benefit from this but users with accessibility needs would also be included.

Support and development for CHIF is crucial.
Financially penalizing users with accessibility needs should be avoided.
The CHIF creation process should be an easy process or at least easily explained.
CHIF already has a way to store multiple media types within itself. One that can greatly benefit someone like Marco is the audio and text storage capabilites.

"Make the extreme mainstream."

Personas

Designing a prototypical user.

Based on our user interviews, our personas portray 2 potential users with visual and audio impairments.
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Marco Polo

Age:

25

Career:

Student, transcriber

Location:

Dallas, TX

Personality

“I wish accessibility was considered at the beginning of the design process.” - regarding digital products
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About

Marco is a student learning transcriptions. He has earned degrees and certificates from SMU.

Blind since birth, Marco is tech savvy - but he struggles in school because he has to go through several steps with the school to get the information in braille or in a digital format for his screen reader. There are barriers to his access as the PDF format is not audio friendly or good for the screen reader.

Marco enjoys social media. He is also a writer. He also innovates shortcuts to get around media shortcomings.
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Frustrations

School doesn't have readily accessible material, which causes him to wait, causing him to get behind in class.
Has to pay for expensive accessibility tools like a screen reader.
It can be difficult to find the right products for his needs.
Relies on others for travel when his cane isn't enough.

Favorite Platforms

Facebook
Instagram

Constraints

Total blindness.
Needs help navigating spaces and needs a service dog.

Mischelle Smith

Age:

48

Career:

Homemaker

Location:

Dallas, TX

Personality

“A lot of image descriptions are confusing for hearing impaired people because they are designed for visually impaired people.” - regarding digital products
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About

Mischelle is a mother of 2 living with her husband. She enjoys cooking and contributed to a cookbook several years ago. Mischelle lost her hearing 3 years ago due to meningitis. She now has cochlear implants.

Watching videos on websites is difficult for her - if the videos don't have closed captions - she doesn't bother watching it because she can't understand voices, dialects, and accents. She won't return to any inaccessible sites. She can't use twitter because it does not have captioning or transcription capabilities.

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Frustrations

Can't understand more than one voice at a time.
Avoids videos that don't have transcription or closed captions.
Has to "tune" her cochlear implants depending on the situation: restaurant, phone call, etc.
Doesn't use twitter as she can't hear the audio tweets.

Favorite Platforms

Youtube
InnoCaption
Facebook

Constraints

Hearing difficulties
Must have closed captions or transcriptions.

Journey Map

The process of buying digital products.

Similar to the empathy map. We put ourselves in the spot of our users wanting to purchase a digital product all the way to needing customer support. We did this exercise with the C-HEAR team to gauge their current understanding. Below are the main issues we wished to tackle.

Stages

01 Set-Up

02 Training

03 Client Management

04 Maintenence

Activities

Create a user account.
Welcome email and "How To" videos provided.
Upgrade elements will be greyed out to user.

Help section with info and "How To" videos.
Email link to instruction manual provided.
FAQ provided.

Webinars about product.
Emails with hints, instructions, "How To's," and more
Logging issues so C-HEAR can improve overall experience.

New features promoted with "How To" videos and emails.
Product upgrades done over late nights.
New features incentivize user to upgrade.

Pain Points

Problems setting up using the software.
CHIF can confuse users as it is a new/unfamiliar file type.
Needing to search for information about the process. (creating a CHIF)
Confusing regarding coding.
Uncertainty of product.
Delay in response for tech support.

"How To" videos not accessible.
Frustration with understanding a new program.
Training not presented at the level that everyone understands.
Instruction manual not up to date.
"Do i need to know coding?"
Difficult to implement.

Problem is too specific that support cannot help.
Need call in support.
Being able to help a novice and an experienced user.
Rude support.

Update doesn't go through.
"Why do i need an upgrade. Why not pricing for all services?"
Video format not being able to play on certain browsers.
Update breaks current features.
big upgrades needing additional training.
is data secure?
Put new features in the corresponding pricing structure.
New features are not helpful.

Opportunities
(How Might We)

Use mobile devices to improve accessibility on the go?
Use AI to explain the coding process?
Use predictive analytics to target new customers?
Use the CHIF format itself to target new customers?

Use the CHIF as part of training?
Use social collaboration to supplement training needs?
Use the CHIF as part of training?
Use predictive analytics to streamline the CHIF creation process?

Use AI to help support to decide on what tier they will use?
Use blockchain to maintain security?
Use AI to develop new features?
Minimize the need for direct support?
Use predictive analysis to determine common client issues?
AI to aid as supplemental support?

Use predictive analytics to continue ongoing training process for new upgrades
Use blockchain to maintain security?
Utilize the downtime for upgrades to enhance user's expereince.
Use AI to develop new features?
Use social collab to understand what features are important to the client.
Use predictive analytics to inform users of new features.

Journey Map Results

The journey map exercise pointed out a lot of pain points that both C-HEAR and its users can benefit from.

Pain Points

Language/comprehension barriers.
Communication between client and C-HEAR.
Lack of empathy for disabilities.
Not understanding all the uses of CHIF.
Uncertainty of the product.

Gain Points + Opportunities (How Might We Statements)

HMW use predictive analytics to target new customers?
HMW use CHIF itself to target new customers?
HMW use augmented reality to explain what CHIF can do?
HMW humanize the relationship between the business and the end user?
HMW engage educators and student in a distance learning environment?

After analyzing the pain points and How Might We statements, we decided to narrow down and focus on what our final recommendations to C-HEAR would be.

Create marketing material to inform users of the potential of CHIF.
Create marketing material to inform users of the CHIF creation process.
Marketing material should be in the CHIF format to "lead by example" and showcase C-HEAR's dedication to the technology.
Future development to make the CHIF process simpler would need to be explored. (R&D funding)

Storyboard

An example of CHIF.

To better illustrate our use of CHIF, we created a storyboard detailing how the technology would be used in a typical school day.

Prototype

But first - marketing.

In order to make CHIF appeal to the mainstream, we decided to package its capabilities in a plugin and market the product as REVERB. Reverb being a word associated with the amplification of sound.
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An example of CHIF.

Being part of the SMU system, we designed a few mockups of how the process would look on their current LMS desktop version. Below are a couple of screens highlighting the REVERB plug-in.
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Example of CHIF Manager within Reverb.

Solution

Recommendations for C-HEAR

Benefits

Value for all.

Currently, barriers to tap into the higher education industry are lower thus making the opportunity fortuitous.
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Student Benefits

Accessible material per learning style.

Receive explanations/feedback from professors.

Engagement with professors in a new way.

Small file size helpful with low bandwidth.

Educator/University Benefits

Assignments with voiced instructions.

Real-time edits that will reflect on all posts.

Data indicating student engagement and efficacy of material.

Encryption to send secured personalized student data.

Support for school based interventions.

Education inclusivity.

Feasability

Implementation.

CHIF Technology has capability to show analytics.

CHIF easily integrates with common LMS.

Due to COVID-19, schools are more open to digital opportunities.

Feedback

Comments From Educators

We presented our ideas on how CHIF would be utilized to various university professors. Below are some of their comments.

"A lot of students don't assimilate everything the first time. Many without cognitive disabilities need to hear the language a 2nd or 3rd time - that's where recording on the CHIF would really work."

V.L., World Languages & Literature Professor SMU

"In regards to the importance of protecting intellectual property, security, and encryption would be great to have. Also having easily accessible metadata would be a good proxy for participation when managing my staff and trainees."

J.H Graduate School Professor, UTSW

"One on one critiques were employed during the switch to online teaching. However, when sending out information like a lecture, it woul dbe useful to have something that everyone could access regardless of teaching style."

D.S., Interior Design Professor, UTA

Outcome

The marketing team expressed enjoyment and support of our marketing tactic for the plug-in.
The developer expressed that the recommendations to make a plugin would be easy to implement.

Reflections + Conclusion

Lessons Learned

Learning about people's accessibility needs within the digital realm was enlightening and helps to design for future products with them in mind.
Including the client in exercises such as the Stakeholder Map and the Journey Map helped create empathy between parties of the the same company. Many expressed that they simply "did not know" what other parties were responsible for. This also helps establish an overall good relationship with all parties involved, creating a better work culture.
For this project specifically, the team at C-HEAR expressed how this experience helped them step back and view their company with a different perspective. This fulfills our role as designers as we seek to find all pain points before arriving at a solution. In this case, allowing the client to be a part of that experience.
A designers role involves learning about the client's teams involved in a project, thus making the designer the greatest balancer of needs as they are privy to all pain points.
Working with a group who is more business oriented helped balance out ideas early on in the design process.