Today, Hulu announced that it’s adjusting the text opacity and backgrounds of its app to make everything easier to read and navigate. The company says these changes are part of its focus on accessibility, but the text legibility improvements will probably be appreciated by just about everyone who subscribes to the service.
The shift to colorful gradient backgrounds was made as part of Hulu’s big visual redesign in 2017, and the company also added a translucency effect to non-highlighted words and icons on-screen. Now, Hulu is dialing some of that back in the name of usability. You can see the difference between the old and new main menus above. Franky, I’m not sure what took this long, but the improved legibility makes a big difference.
Hulu also says it has built better screen reader capabilities into the app. The screen reader, which vocally guides people through Hulu’s UX, can be enabled through your device’s settings.
“We made accessible design the main focus of our summer hackathon and launched an audio description hub on our web platform earlier this year,” Hulu’s Akshatha Kommalapati and Tanya Parker wrote in a blog post. “The audio description hub allows viewers to find content with audio descriptions quickly and easily. And the changes don’t stop there.”
As for the improvements it’s making today, Hulu says Roku users will see them immediately, and they’ll continue rolling out to Android, iOS, iPadOS, and more living room devices over the next few weeks.