ExperienceLab

UX review: Sony's Google TV box & the Media Remote app

 

I believe an android based set-top box has the potential to, ultimately, be as successful as a connected home solution, and as such I've been trying out the Sony Google TV Android Box. This post talks about my experience of the product, my likes and dislikes, and suggests some areas for improvement in this early version.

Game changers in UX - Channel 4, Fuel 4 event

On 7^th November, I spoke at the Channel 4/Fuel4 event: UX by SW, Exploring the TV experience in a Connected World in Bristol. It was a really interesting day with a fascinating keynote speech from Bill Buxton.

Bill reminded us that it takes 20 years for initial new ideas to become billion pound industries. Whilst products, like the touchscreen, may seem to take-off very quickly from a consumer’s perspective they have spent many years in research and development before apparently becoming an overnight hit. It’s a great reminder to those of us in the industry that can easily get disheartened that new concepts aren’t taking off as fast as we’d have liked. In fact the process of getting the solution right for consumers and changing consumer behaviour just does take a long time, however it may seem in retrospect.

The conference also focused on ‘game changers’ in UX. I spoke on a panel on this subject focusing on wireless technologies, touchscreens and potentially whether IPTV/Smart TV will be a gamer changer in the future.

Wireless technologies have been instrumental to many of the products we now use in our day-to-day lives, such as laptops, mobile phones or tablets. Without this key technology many products simply wouldn’t have been so appealing.

Touchscreen has had a fundamental impact on the way users interact with technology and is go intuitive that children under 2 through to the elderly in their 80s are learning to use this technology in a way never seen before.

Touchscreens are also shaping designs leading to more visual and cleaner approaches, which in turn feeds back into computer based web designs and are often extremely popular with users. The only down side being that 'roll over' features seem to be being avoided, even in web designs, because it can't be used on touch screens. If implemented correctly, roll over (whether to provide tool tips or drop down menus) is a really valued tool for users who are often more comfortable looking in various menus rather than across various screens. 

I suspect and hope that IPTV / Smart TV will be a game changer in the future. However, there is certainly a lot the industry needs to do right in order for this to happen and I still think it will be several more years before anything really takes off.  For example, it needs to be made easier to set-up the ‘Smart’ service as well as ensuring the right content is presented and accessed at the right time and in the right way through the TV interface. There is also a key role for second screens here as an advanced remote control, added-value companion device and to allow content to be easily transferred across platform.

See my full presentation here: Download Lucy Gill - Game changers in UX

It’s an exciting time in a fascinating industry – but well worth remembering Bill Buxton’s message that we shouldn’t expect things to change too quickly.

 

Picture credits: Fuel4 website, own pictures.

Sky+ second screen app - controlling your Sky+HD from your iPad

In this blog I review the Sky+ iPad app recently upgraded to allow control of a Sky+HD box. We hope to review more ‘second screen’ apps here soon so watch this space.

Assuming you are near your TV and have a Sky +HD box, the Sky+ iPad app gives you the ability to control your TV from your iPad, and browse or search programmes. The features are described below in more detail.

Paying for parking by phone – the pros and cons

There seems to have been a sudden roll-out of ‘pay by phone’ (IVR) services in car parks where I live. Like my colleague Mark in a previous post, I was recently forced to try one in a new car park when severely short of coins and was both impressed and infuriated.

It seemed to take forever but I admit some of this was my fault – it stupidly hadn’t occurred to me to get my card out before calling and by the time I had juggled my phone, bag and prevented my son walking into the oncoming traffic sufficiently to retrieve my card I’d already failed 3 attempts to enter the card number. Could they not include a ‘pause’ feature?

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…

Will SmartGlass help Microsoft win the race for the centre of the Connected living room?

I’ve been waiting for a long time for a company to really lead the charge in the living room and make web services/apps on a TV screen into a must have. Everyone is fighting to be the front runner but I wonder whether Microsoft might just win if their recently announced SmartGlass technology working with Xbox 360 is as good as it sounds.

Designing Apps for TV - a call for collaboration between manufacturers

I’ve spent much of this year so far working with various clients who are trying to get apps (things like BBC iPlayer and LOVEFiLM) onto various platforms (TVs, set-top boxes, games consoles) to view on a TV screen. The problem is EVERY platform is technically different requiring the poor designers to design for each and every platform separately.

Top ten apps for TV

It’s a fascinating and fast-moving time for the TV. Not only is 3D in the living room becoming a reality, but the advent of internet connections to the TV is inevitably leading to new ‘on demand’ services straight to the TV as well as internet widgets/applications (apps). Apps have had a dramatic effect on mobile phones, with the popularity of the iPhone and iPad underlining how useful these are perceived to be. But will they be so popular on the TV and if so which apps will thrive on the TV screen?

 There are various dilemmas for the TV which mean different apps will be popular here compared to mobile devices:

• Entering text is much harder than on a computer – even with a keyboard the distance between the keyboard and screen leads to a lot of looking up and down.
• The screen is often monopolised for watching programmes and splitting it can disrupt viewing too much.
•  The TV is a social entertainment system with many viewers at once.

So, my prediction is that the following apps will be most popular:

• Apps that require minimal text input (are you really going to write emails or long text messages into your TV?)
• Apps that are TV centric – providing video content, augmenting programmes, helping with discovering and choosing what to watch
• Apps that avoid disrupting TV viewing – apps that sit neatly to the side or beneath the viewing area or are designed to fill short periods of time (between programmes, in advert breaks, if your fellow viewer needs a bathroom break!)
• Apps that are designed for multiple viewers – whether that’s games, shared calendars, music, photos or potentially new ‘family/household’ social networking applications.

Could property websites do more to improve the house hunting experience?

So, I’ve been house hunting recently and have to say that property websites have progressed a lot since the last time I was looking, but I am surprised at how limited they still are. 

It’s great that several of them now summarise the available properties in a map – a quick way to rule out those ones that look surprisingly good value until you realise they are positioned actually on the M25! Also, several of the sites now let you save properties you are interested in too and send you alerts, but a few extra personalisation features would be a huge help.

Seesaw - some nice touches but still room for improvement

Seesaw is a new online TV service that provides catchup content from the BBC, Channel 4 and Five, as well as some additional on demand content from other sources.

Having played around with the new service both in beta and post launch, I have to say I quite like it. Generally it's reasonably easy to use, visual and nicely laid out. It's handy to be able to go to one place to access content from various different sources (channels or otherwise) - although I admit I still go to BBC iPlayer to access BBC content - and the 'turn lights down' feature is a particularly nice touch. The easy links to other episodes in the same or previous series is well implemented too.