Read Aloud on Chrome

The Problem

Through UXR we learned that a large set of users find reading long-form text in Chrome not enjoyable, cumbersome, or impossible, either all the time or during particular circumstances. As most content on the web is text-heavy, this is a critical problem to address.

Target Users

We identified 4 main groups of users that would benefit from this feature. Our primary user group consists of users for whom English is a second language. But we’re also considering knowledge workers and audio enthusiasts as our secondary group of users.

MVP

Create an end to end text to audio experience for all Chrome users on our Android platform. The feature set for our MVP includes:

• Core player functionality - Play, Pause, Skip, Playback speed, Text sync, Voice selection

• Background playback - enables users to continue to listen and control playback from the lock screen.

• Discoverable entry points - Chrome overflow menu & magic toolbar

Player Design

In order to design the player, I researched media player patterns across products and platforms. Specifically I looked at Apple podcasts, Spotify, Youtube, and Kindle Audio books.

Minimized Player

The player consists of two states, the minimized player that appears over the page content by default when read aloud is launched.

Expanded Player

Users can launch the expanded player by tapping on the bottom bar.

Tab Player Notification

Since the player will be available across tabs as a user browses the web, I designed a state to show users which tab is playing audio in the tab switcher.

Dark Mode

Results

The feature launched this past month in Canary.