UX Design
Skrivert
Real-time subtitle captioning software
Overview
Skrivert is a live subtitle captioning tool designed to democratize and simplify subtitle production to novice users and design a tool which offers the best subtitle captioning experience for both experts and novel users.
Bridging the gap between professional users who need speed and newcomers who need guidance.
The project responded to a growing legislative and cultural shift in Sweden, where accessibility requirements are expanding the audience for subtitle tooling far beyond broadcast specialists.
Type
University group project
Duration
~4 months
Course
Product Development in Media Technology using the "Design-Build-Test" method, 7.5 ECTS
Stakeholder
Qwertyist AB
Problem
The subtitle production landscape has a huge usability gap. Existing tools were designed by and for power users, leaving subtitle captioning only accessible to a small number of experts.
- Subtitles are the most widely read type of text in Sweden, yet the tools to produce them are built for specialists.
- The Web Accessibility Directive requires public sector organisations to make content accessible, driving demand for tools anyone can use.
- Existing live captioning tools prioritze raw function over usability, locking out non-expert users. For example, they rely heavily on commands and often use modals, resulting in poor usability, navigation and obstructing interfaces.
Research & Process
The project followed a design thinking methodology across three iterative phases, combining qualitative interviews, survey feedback, and live usability testing.
Lo-Fi → Test → Mid-Fi → Test → Hi-Fi → Test → Present.
The feedback from our stakeholder, user interviews and user tests was overwhelmingly positive.
Key design decision
The Toolbox
My biggest contribution to this project was designing the core UX and designing the toolbox interactions.
I came up with a quite smart interaction design and workflow using a sidebar "toolbox".
Rather than floating modals — which obscure the writing area — all key tools are consolidated into a resizable right-side panel. The panel can be split into two halves, letting users run two tools simultaneously (e.g., chat alongside the manuscript view). Each tool was designed in both full-width and half-width variants.
This solved spatial inconsistency: tools are always in the same place, reducing cognitive load. The split-view adds power-user flexibility without increasing complexity for beginners.
Some of the results
Want to see or hear more about this project?
I would gladly show more frames, the design process and speak about my contributions to Skrivert!