The following piece was recently published on the Comcast corporate site
and is a short interview with Lori Hylan-Cho. Lori is the director of
engineering for the Xfinity Stream app, which allows Comcast customers
to watch and record live TV and on-demand content on an iOS or Android
device, as you can do with the set-top box. I was pleased that
accessibility was briefly mentioned at the beginning of the interview.
Turning Customer Feedback Into Great App Experiences
Lori Hylan-Cho, Director of Engineering for the Xfinity Stream app,
discusses development, user experience and her favorite ways to use
Xfinity's flagship TV app, which relaunched as Xfinity Stream in early
2017.
What does a typical day look like for you?
I’m the director of engineering for the Xfinity Stream App, so most of
my work involves making sure the development team has everything they
need to build new features while preserving and improving quality,
accessibility, and usability in every release. I read the feedback we
get through in-app surveys, in the forums, and on Twitter on a daily
basis and try to find patterns that might indicate we have an
issue—whether it's in the apps or in the services and video delivery
infrastructure upon which our apps depend. I like connecting dots—and
teams—to try to solve real-world problems.
What’s your favorite feature of the Xfinity Stream app you wish everyone
knew about?
I'm a fan of little features—the small things that make the experience
more intuitive, more usable, more polished. The 15-second skip buttons
(and the double-tap gesture that serves as a shortcut even when the
player controls are not showing) are probably my favorite feature, as
they give me the ability to skip backward to re-hear missed dialogue or
skip past certain segments on recorded shows.
What’s your primary use case for the app? Where do you use it most?
In addition to hockey, both live and recorded (as an east coast fan of a
west coast team, I often fall asleep mid-game and watch the end in the
morning) I watch a lot of classic movies, live news, house-hunting shows
like Hawaii Life, and series such as The Americans while doing other
things around the house. When customers ask why I use the Xfinity Stream
app when I have a big-screen TV, I tell them about how cool it is to be
able to watch TV in any room: in the basement while doing laundry, at
the dining room table while doing a puzzle, or even by the bathroom sink
while getting ready for work in the morning. And when I’m winding down
at night, I’d rather prop a tablet on my nightstand and watch a show or
a game with earbuds in than on the TV 10 feet away. I can even set a
sleep timer without missing a scene or a play thanks to Picture in
Picture, which kicks in automatically when I switch to the Clock app.
What was the most valuable piece of feedback you've received on the app
that was turned into a real-life update?
It's almost never one piece of feedback, but rather a bunch around a
common theme that is most valuable. When we got a lot of requests to add
Search functionality on iPad, for example, we realized that people
weren't finding it in the left navigation area—and we moved it to the
top right corner, where customers expected it to be. Where issues are on
the content or service side, many different teams here at Comcast have
an opportunity to jump into action right away to get things working. I
give thanks every day for the customers who write in with specific
details about what's not working for them so we can get them a better
experience as quickly as possible.
--
David Goldfield, Assistive Technology Specialist Feel free to visit my
Web site WWW.DavidGoldfield.Info
You are invited to visit the moderator's Web site at WWW.DavidGoldfield.Info
for additional resources and information about assistive technology training
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