YouView - finally nearly here, but will it be worth the wait?

So the news we’ve all (well maybe not all) been waiting for – the internet TV service YouView is finally going to appear in the shops at the end of the month, if Lord Sugar is to be believed. 

I meet this news with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I can’t help feeling that it may have slightly missed the boat, on the other, in reality I think the transition in viewing behaviour and TV usage that this box supports is going to take a long time to mature so maybe it’s not too late. My conclusion – its cost will make it a slow starter, and if it comes down in cost it’s success will depend on its usability/user experience. You might say given my area of expertise I would say that, but here is my reasoning…

Whilst you could see Smart TVs as a rival, I’m not sure that’s fair. I believe YouView is targeted at the same sort of audience as Freeview boxes were – i.e. those who don’t want to get a new TV to get new features (in this case on-demand TV apps) and potentially those who aren’t particularly tech-savvy. So does it successfully target that market? 

Imagine you shelled out on a new HD TV a few years back and have no intention of replacing it but really fancy being able to watch BBC iPlayer and similar without looking at your teeny mobile screen or your computer. What should you buy?

YouView supporters would no doubt say – YouView - but there are various other options including:

 

*Not all the same apps as YouView but growing all the time  

 ** Price estimates taken from Amazon

So clearly price is an issue, and some of these other options even offer more at a lower price. However, beyond this, the one thing the table above does not communicate is relative user experience or usability. None of the platforms above are specifically designed for joint PVR and on-demand TV apps, and getting and using this functionality on these devices is not a seamless user experience. If YouView have managed to create a UI that really does make this easy for the non-techy and it gets a reputation for good usability, then it really could be a success. That is a big 'if' and the lack of WiFi in itself I think suggests there could be user experience problems for non-techy users.

I look forward to getting my hands on a YouView box and posting my thoughts on its usability once I have. Watch this space…

 

Comments

[NigelwUK]

I honestly don't think missing out WiFi will cause user experience problems for non techy users - certainly not on the scale that including it would cause.

WiFi is great when it works; when there's no congestion, and few of the neighbours have it too, and when the security works seamlessly across all the vendors, so you don't have to type in hexadecimal codes, and the performance doesn't suddenly drop because someone else is downloading a big file, or because a gadget that's just been plugged in is slowing the whole network down to its speed.

All of those things can happen, and the non-technical user will just see "This YouView box can't stream; I'm taking it back" or they'll call the tech support line, who simply can't talk them through the intricacies of selecting a different WiFi channel on every model of router, and say "YouView support were rubbish"

Really, I think the best thing would have been to bundle it with a pair of HomePlugs - about as simple as networking can be, and far more reliable than WiFi.

You may have WiFi that works perfectly; but for a sizeable number of people, it's far from a pleasant experience.

I detailed more of this in a blog post a while back: http://gonedigital.net/2010/09/02/why-bother-with-wifi-on-freeviewhd-kit/

[Lucy Gill]

Good comment and largely I agree. Bundling a powerline solution with the box (as BT Vision does) would be the best solution and much more reliable than WiFi. That's how I have my Smart TV set-up and it works well.

However, one extra consideration is the rising number of '2nd screen' apps. E.g. apps that let you control your TV from your mobile/tablet or Zeebox type apps that adds services based on what you're viewing. I can see this sort of solution being really important in future (even is YouView was not initially designed to support such things).

Whilst having powerline for your YouView box should not rule this out if there is WiFi on the same network in the same room, it does add a layer of complexity.