Easy YouTube player – making it easier?

Wow, I can’t believe my last post was January.  I’d like to say I’ve been off on an exotic trip but I haven’t!  There have been lots of good things going on and I’ve finally started to make time to design a new blog.  More on those things soon…

I’ve been playing a bit more with how the Easy YouTube player might look.  This was to address any outstanding issues that came out of testing the player and to look at the user experience as a whole.

I was already working on it when I met Thomas Hooper at Scripting Enabled.  We spent some time together on the second day, discussing the version I was working on.  After the event,  I asked Tom to collaborate with me.   Over a few months, we each brought different things to this version and it was great to critique each other’s work, discuss what we wanted to achieve and come up a visual for something that could hopefully be an enhancement.  The picture below shows how it might look.

Visual of Easy YouTube enhancement

Here’s a synopsis of changes

Things people wanted to be different

1. Less information on the player somewhat differently organised:  although there is more information in some respects now, things have been changed to make it easier to understand.
   The copy has been simplified and more space has been given to the different areas within the player.  It will be interesting to see if this has helped.
2. The address facility to be at the bottom of the player, not at the top: after much consideration, we thought we would leave it at the top and that this would make it seem less busy.

Things people wanted to be added

1. Visual clues for the different screen size options:  different sized screens added.
2. Pictures for the search results: already added by Christian.
3. Running time/ time in to tell you how long the video is: added.
4. An indication to tell you how many videos you will get from the search:  added at the top, although I don’t know how/if this would actually work technically.

Other things

1. Improved contrast of colours.
2. Address bar
   • Simplified wording.
   • New button.
   • (Different green)
3. Search
   • Simplified wording.
   • Added visual device to enhance search concept.
   • (Different colours)
   • Wider box to type in search request.
   • Visual separation of search results.
   • New button.
   • Wording changed from ‘go’ to ‘search’.
   • A ‘next’ arrow at the bottom to indicate there is more.  If we did this, we would probably need a back arrow as well, so I’m not sure if this technically possible.
4. Control buttons
   • New buttons.
   • Changed the order of the sound control buttons so the active ones are closer to the volume indicator showing cause and effect.
   • Added words to back up the visuals.
5. Volume indicator
   • Brought this down to tie in with the control buttons.
   • Changed the colour of the indicator bar to tie it in with the volume control buttons.
6. Screen size
   • New buttons to tie in to style of control buttons.
   • Added visual representation of screen sizes.
7. Added a logo.  For fun!

Feedback is welcome!

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Tags: accessibility, easy youtube player, learning disability, scriptingenabled, usability