Audio rendering smart TV apps through mobile devices

TV service providers now offer a variety of features, including broadcast-related ones like electronic programme guides, catch-up and recording features, but also Internet access and a variety of TV applications. These new features turn TV devices into more versatile and interesting platforms, but also clog the screen with more content than ever. Since this content is mainly visual, this means that TVs have even more inaccessible content for visually impaired people. This paper presents the design of a solution that audio renders the TV application’s user interface through a mobile device. Resorting to a mix of accessibility experts and user studies, we compared multiple feedback versions containing different contextual information. Participants reported that the use of repetitive sentences should be avoided; concise feedback feels smoother and quicker but, for some, lacks information while extended feedback can be annoying and take too much time though is appropriate for learning phases. For menus, most participants suggested to include the position of an element and the number of elements. The results helped to identify the critical information to convey to the user and to tailor two modes differing in the amount of contextual information provided, suitable for differently skilled users. Additionally, we condensed the findings into a list of design guidelines which can be generalized to other auditory interfaces meant to be operated by a VI user.