Experiences for everyone

My Role

Accessibility steering group leader

Defining accessibility reviews for designers

Key Achievements

  • Delivered the first truly accessible audio interface for podcasters and content creators.
  • Coordinated and hosted panels and presentations to colleagues by external accessibility experts.
  • Integrated accessibility checklist into early design work to allow assessment by designers.

Scarlett 3G Accessible Halo

Scarlett 3rd Gen uses the iconic Scarlett Gain Halos to communicate the signal level of the instrument or microphone.

The LED halo around the gain dial turns green (good), amber (pre-clip), and red (clip). However, customers with certain types of color blindness cannot always clearly differentiate these three states, which could lead to poorer audio recordings.

I conducted research with colleagues with forms of color blindness. Offering them a selection of colors for each state that they could choose themselves. The goal was to understand the best single alternate state for these three colors.

Scarlett 3rd Gen Color Blindness Prototype GIF. The audio interface is at the top of the screen. Below it is a color selector to choose which color is used for safe gain and clipping gain (too loud).
An interactive prototype of the Scarlett custom halo color functionality

The best default, alternate state was discovered, using blue instead of amber. However, as a team, we agreed that offering the customer the ability to configure the three stages to any color they wished was not only the best solution to consider all types of color blindness but to also allow anyone to customize their Scarlett to work just how they like.

Use the slider to see the variation in colors
User Interface of Focusrite Control allowing colors for metering to be set for good, pre-clip, and clipping levels.
Changing Halo meter settings in Focusrite Control

Read more here.

Vocaster

The Vocaster is a fully accessible piece of hardware with accompanying software. All designs considered access from the outset and I was instrumental in involving screen reader users in the design and testing process.

You can learn more about Vocaster here.

Vocaster Two Audio Interface
Vocaster Two Audio Interface

Accessibility Panels

I was honored to take part in an online event in January 2021 entitled ‘Normalising the Conversation,’ an event about accessibility in the music industry organized by blind musician Jason Dasent. I’ve known Jason since 2019 when I arranged for him to visit Focusrite’s HQ in the UK to discuss accessibility with the teams and try out some of our products. Since then, Jason and I have spoken and collaborated regularly.

The online panel was a joy to take part in, with others from across the industry (NI, Arturia, Avid, and others) feeding into the conversation and highlighting how we can make music-making better for everyone by focusing on accessibility.

In 2022 I was fortunate to be invited back by Jason for another panel The panel had grown in size, and it was great to see so many more in the industry taking part.

See the event link here.