This service was reviewed in March 2013. It is a free service.
Background
I am in my early twenties and I have no light perception, therefore I rely on a screen reader (in my case JAWS) when accessing online content via my PC. As a young person, I enjoy watching TV, but I also like engaging in other activities such as socialising and keeping fit. It is for this reason that catch-up TV is so important to me, as having such a service means that I don't have to worry about being late for a programme. Additionally, as a person with sight loss, accessibility of such a service will depend on whether or not I am able to use it. I have been using the ITV online catch-up player for a while and due to the importance of accessibility of such services, I wanted to write a review of this provision. I am familiar with watching programmes on my PC, so I was able to review this product and compare it to other online catch-up services.
Information about the service
The ITV player is an online catch-up service that enables users to watch programmes that they have missed. It also offers the ability to watch live TV as well as renting individual programmes and a series of a programme for a limited number of days.
Setting up
This service was tested on a laptop running windows 7 using internet explorer 9 and JAWS 14.
It is possible to access programmes on the ITV online player by using an adobe flash player. Once I had selected a programme that I wanted to watch, I pressed enter on the play button and the programme started. However, playing the programme was not as straight forward as I hoped, for some reason my screen reader read the 'play button' as a heading and not a button. So I needed to press enter on the heading labelled 'Play'. In order to rent a programme I needed to register with ITV. Registering was straight forward and I encountered no accessibility problems.
Using the service
Once on the website I was able to browse the list of programmes that were available to view. Although this wasn't as straight forward as I would have liked, it was manageable. Due to the page having very little headings and a lot of information, it was a case of reading through a lot of irrelevant content before I could access the list of programmes.
I then proceeded to play a programme, once I started watching a programme I encountered several issues with the flash player. When navigating the flash player, the only useful information that I was getting was related to what was on screen. For example, I was aware if I was watching an advert or the actual programme and how far I was into the programme. When the programme initially started, the volume was muted and at first I had to get sighted assistance to put the volume up, but once I had the opportunity to find out what button did what, I was able to put the volume up myself the next time I watched a programme. There were buttons available, but they were not labelled so I did not know what button did what until I pressed it. Furthermore, once I put the subtitles on, I could not access the button to forward the programme. I also found that once I had pressed a button, the screen reader would lose focus of the flash player and I had to arrow back to it in order to access the controls. I even tried accessing the flash player with the virtual cursor off (insert plus Z), but I was not able to access the controls at all using this method. Nevertheless, once I had paused a programme, the button 'resume' was labelled correctly and I was able to successfully continue watching my show.
Advantages and disadvantages
One thing I liked about the ITV player is that it gave you a synopsis of the programme above the flash player together with a list of programmes in the same series.
However, I was disappointed to see the absence of audio described content, which was quite surprising as other catch-up services such as 4oD and the BBC iPlayer offer this facility on a proportion of their programmes. Moreover, the inconsistency of the flash player and the difficulty in finding the required information quickly on the website, made it a really complicated service to access.
I think that the ITV player has a lot of potential and with the right adjustments, I feel that blind and partially sighted people would really benefit from the service. Even so, I would not rule out the ITV player just because I encountered difficulties when initially accessing the service. Once I got used to it and found ways to work around the mentioned issues, I really enjoyed catching up on my favourite TV programmes. However, when I compare it to other catch-up services, I feel a little frustrated as I shouldn't have to spend time trying to find work arounds for so many things on an online service.
Any other comments
In order to make this service accessible, I would recommend labelling the buttons on the flash player as this would give new screen reader users information as to what button does what. I would also recommend that the 'play' button is labelled as a button as appose to a heading. Finally, I would recommend that the information on the page is broken down into further headings so that it is possible to navigate the information more efficiently with a screen reader.
Conclusions
The ITV player is an online catch-up service that offers individuals the ability to watch programmes that have been broadcasted or to watch ITV live. While the service is complicated to access with a screen reader, given time it is usable. Nevertheless, the absence of audio described content and the unreliability of the flash player makes it easy competition for other service providers such as 4oD and the BBC. However, taking a few steps such as labelling the unlabelled buttons and breaking down the information on the website would put it on the right path in the way of accessibility for blind customers.
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