SPOTIFY
FOR THE DEAF & HARD-OF-HEARING
A personal project I lead with my colleague, Stephanie Morton, who helped connect us with the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. I contributed most to the ideation and design work. I was also supported by my instructors in Forge's 10-week project-based UX course.
Hard-of-hearing accessibility for Spotify is far from impossible.
Not only are there ways to make audio streaming platforms in general more accessible for the hard-of-hearing, but deaf people can actually feel the vibrations of sounds in music in a similar way to how other people hear music.
Dr. Dean Shibata, an assistant professor of radiology at the University of Washington, stated in regards to his research on the matter, “…the experience deaf people have when ‘feeling’ music is similar to the experience other people have when hearing music. The perception of the musical vibrations by the deaf is likely every bit as real as the equivalent sounds, since they are ultimately processed in the same part of the brain.” You can read the full article by Walter Neary about his findings on the University of Washington News site here.
Dr. Dean Shibata, an assistant professor of radiology at the University of Washington, stated in regards to his research on the matter, “…the experience deaf people have when ‘feeling’ music is similar to the experience other people have when hearing music. The perception of the musical vibrations by the deaf is likely every bit as real as the equivalent sounds, since they are ultimately processed in the same part of the brain.” You can read the full article by Walter Neary about his findings on the University of Washington News site here.
We heard directly from hard-of-hearing individuals.
Through the connections of my American Sign Language (ASL) student colleague at the University of Virginia, Stephanie Morton, we were able to learn from the experiences of hard-of-hearing people. Her conversations with them uncovered key barriers that face deaf and hard-of-hearing users on Spotify.
Adjusting the equalizer is a hassle.
In order to adjust the equalizer and change the audio to something a hard-of-hearing individual could feel, the user has to navigate deep into the settings. This feature is only present on the mobile app, and requires the user to click a small settings icon on the top right corner of the homepage, then scroll nearly to the bottom of the long settings page. A user who may regularly want to access this feature cannot do it quickly.
Lyrics and captions are sparse.
For a hard-of-hearing user, there's little they can read on Spotify. A select few songs that are connected with Genius lyrics will have the option to swipe down below a song and display concurrent lyrics along with a few fun facts about the artist and the song. It's a wonderful feature, but its existence lies only in the mobile app and a handful of songs, completely excluding podcasts and news episodes. Not to mention, the fun facts that pop up cause the user to miss the lyrics being sung at that moment, making it more geared towards fun for a hearing user and less so as an accessibility tool.
The magic of Spotify is less valuable to a hard-of-hearing user.
This is to be expected, as an app created for sharing audio would naturally be less useful to a hard-of-hearing user. However, this doesn't mean that the 'special sauce' of Spotify couldn't be shared more with a hard-of-hearing audience. Spotify's magic is in its smart recommendation algorithm, personalized playlists, and social connection via following friends and seeing their listening activity. Why not try to let everyone enjoy it?
How do we break these barriers?
With our combined knowledge of the frustrations of hard-of-hearing individuals and interface design, we designed some solutions.
Easy access to equalizer settings.
Instead of having to scroll through the settings to adjust the equalizer for audio, there would be an equalizer button on the top right corner to easily access the adjuster. As well as manual adjustments, we designed a hard-of-hearing button one can click to automatically optimize audio for the most vibrations. This way, deaf and hard-of-hearing users can easily and quickly optimize music to make it easier to feel.
For example, strong, deep sounds such as drums and bass guitar are the easiest for a hard-of-hearing individual to feel. You can read more about music for the deaf here.
For example, strong, deep sounds such as drums and bass guitar are the easiest for a hard-of-hearing individual to feel. You can read more about music for the deaf here.
Visualize the beat.
These dancing, graphic equalizer levels serve as a visual aid to the adjusted music for vibration. The ability to see the beat and how the music is moving would allow hard-of-hearing users to strengthen their grasp of what the music sounds like in conjunction with how it feels.
Karaoke-style lyrics and captions.
To make all audio accessible, regardless of Genius partnership, we added a recognizable closed captions button next to the ‘like’ button that would toggle karaoke-style words to cover the album cover. This is especially important in the case of a dedicated audio-streaming platform, because there are no visible lips to potentially read. The button’s close proximity to an already commonly-used button and the lyrics popping up where other Spotify pop-ups already reside makes this design update easily adoptable by the user.
The karaoke-style of the lyrics and captions allow a hard-of-hearing user to follow along more accurately, and know the exact cadence of the lyrics in order to aid in perceiving the beat and possibly hum or sing along. Words convey meaning, emotion, and more in music, news, and podcasts. The ability to read the accompanying words from audio is essential to fairly conveying the message to hard-of-hearing users.
The karaoke-style of the lyrics and captions allow a hard-of-hearing user to follow along more accurately, and know the exact cadence of the lyrics in order to aid in perceiving the beat and possibly hum or sing along. Words convey meaning, emotion, and more in music, news, and podcasts. The ability to read the accompanying words from audio is essential to fairly conveying the message to hard-of-hearing users.
Specialized personal content.
In addition to Spotify’s public, curated playlists, all users get an array of customized playlists, such as Discover Weekly and Release Radar, which update every week with new tracks catered to the user’s tastes. Therefore, in order for hard-of-hearing users to partake in the complete Spotify experience, we developed two examples for curated playlists they could see.
The first, “Deaf and HoH Picks”, would be a weekly updated playlist of songs that are easiest to “hear” via vibrations and suited to the user’s taste. The second, “Transcripted News/Podcasts”, would be a public Spotify playlist full of the best news segments and podcasts to read along to.
Including hard-of-hearing users in Spotify’s audio curation features would make it easier for deaf and hard-of-hearing users to discover music, news, and podcasts to enjoy and use the great features of the application just like any other user.
The first, “Deaf and HoH Picks”, would be a weekly updated playlist of songs that are easiest to “hear” via vibrations and suited to the user’s taste. The second, “Transcripted News/Podcasts”, would be a public Spotify playlist full of the best news segments and podcasts to read along to.
Including hard-of-hearing users in Spotify’s audio curation features would make it easier for deaf and hard-of-hearing users to discover music, news, and podcasts to enjoy and use the great features of the application just like any other user.
What people with hearing loss think.
Upon completing the designs, I reached out to various deaf/HoH communities in online Facebook groups and on Instagram. I showed them the designs and had them fill out a survey to share their thoughts. You can read some feedback below:
A deaf and hard-of-hearing inclusive Spotify experience.
In designing Spotify to be inclusive of the hard-of-hearing folks out there, audio streaming would be an entirely different experience, even for those who can hear. A deaf and hard-of-hearing inclusive audio streaming platform communicates the experience in a way that appeals to the other senses besides the ear. It is inclusive of both people and sensations.
Additionally, deaf and hard-of-hearing Spotify users could then be included in discourse surrounding music, news segments, and podcasts that they otherwise would not have been able to experience in this way. This would add many more people’s perspectives to discussions surrounding such important pieces of culture.
Additionally, deaf and hard-of-hearing Spotify users could then be included in discourse surrounding music, news segments, and podcasts that they otherwise would not have been able to experience in this way. This would add many more people’s perspectives to discussions surrounding such important pieces of culture.
This project was also published in CARRE4, a Medium publication for science, technology, culture, society, and 'All Things Redefining Humanity'.
Why stop there?
Next: Optimizing the hospitality industry wielding the power of design.