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http://www.dmst.aueb.gr/dds/pubs/conf/2001-ECIS-iTV/html/itv.htm This is an HTML rendering of a working paper draft that led to a publication. The publication should always be cited in preference to this draft using the following reference:
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Information Systems in the Living Room: A Case Study of Personalized
Interactive TV Design*
Georgios Lekakos
eLectronic Trading Research
Unit (eLTRUN)
Athens University of
Economics & Business
47 Evelpidon & Lefkados
Str.,
113 62 Athens, Greece
Fax: +30(1)8203664
eLectronic Trading Research
Unit (eLTRUN)
Athens University of
Economics & Business
47 Evelpidon & Lefkados
Str.,
113 62 Athens, Greece
Tel: +30(1)8203663
Fax: +30(1)8203664
Diomidis Spinellis
Department of
Information and Communication Systems
University of
the Aegean
GR-83200
Karlovasi, Greece
Phone:
+30(273)82222
The birth of the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1993,
particularly its graphical user interface, offered marketers opportunities that
were previously unimaginable. The WWW allows for advanced marketing activities
and, moreover, for interactive marketing, as the user is actively involved in
responding to the vendor’s promotion campaign. Interactive TV, also referred to
as iTV, combines the appeal and mass audience of traditional TV with the
interactive features such as those currently available on the Web and offers
new possibilities for the viewer, who can directly access relevant information
and other services being just ‘one-click’ away. While personalisation is a
practice used widely on the Internet by many sites that exploit the huge amount
of customer information they collect, applying personalisation techniques over
interactive television presents a number of obstacles. In this paper we focus
our attention on the design and testing process of the User Interface (UI) for
the Interactive & Personalized Advertisement TV viewer. The challenges of
designing interactive TV applications are based on the differences of the
medium from the traditional PC based Information Systems in terms of input and
output devices, viewing environment, number of users and low level of expertise
in PC usage.
As
digital technology and consumer behaviour evolve, marketers can and need to
continuously enhance the value of their digital marketing offering. The birth
of the World Wide Web (WWW) in 1993, particularly its graphical user interface,
offered marketers opportunities that were previously unimaginable [Poon and
Jevons, 1997].
Interactive
TV, also referred to as iTV, combines the appeal and mass audience of
traditional TV with the interactive features such as those currently available
on the Web [Developer, 1999] and offers new possibilities for the viewer, who
can directly access relevant information and other services being just
‘one-click’ away. For the marketer, the great potential of interactivity rests
in the capability it offers for better understanding the viewer’s behaviour and
building personalised relations with individual consumers. As the case of the
Internet has demonstrated, tracking the user’s interaction with the system,
including navigation, content preferences, purchasing habits etc., can greatly
support many of a marketer’s objectives and activities. These many be:
measurement of interactive advertisement effectiveness, better understanding of
consumer needs and preferences, effective targeting of advertisement and,
ultimately, personalisation of advertisement messages, site content and
services.
In
the context of iTV advertising, personalisation refers to the use of technology
and viewer information in order to tailor commercials and their respective
interactive content to each individual viewer profile. Using such viewer
information, either obtained previously or provided in real-time, the stream of
advertisements adapts to fit that viewer's needs, whether they are stated
directly by the user or they are inferred by the advertiser.
While
personalisation is a practice used widely on the Internet by many sites that
exploit the huge amount of customer information they collect, applying
personalisation techniques over interactive television presents significant
obstacles:
1. Broadcast environment:
unlike the Internet, where each web-page is delivered individually to each
user’s computer upon request, iTV content is broadcast to all TV sets.
Delivering personalised content over a broadcasting platform is a contradiction
in terms. This would require transmitting as many streams as the different TV
sets. Thus, other techniques need to be applied in order to make this happen.
These techniques typically involve a set-top box or other similar terminal
device that stores some personalised content and controls the interactivity.
2. Targeting individuals:
Whereas the personal computer typically has only one user at a time, the
television is often viewed by groups of people in both private and public
areas. Consequently, personalising and targeting advertisements effectively
presents technological, business-related and practical challenges. Even if we
only consider household viewership, it remains a difficult issue how to identify
and target individual household members or whether to target the whole
household as a group. While it is technically possible to identify which
member(s) of the household is (are) currently watching TV (e.g. through ‘hidden
eye’ technologies or remote-control functionality), this is something not
perceived positively by viewers.
3. Viewing environment: TV viewing experience usually occurs in the
relaxing home atmosphere, mainly for entertaining or informative
purposes. Any interface that requires computer-usage experience will not match
to the average viewer profile. The input device (mainly remote-control) offers
limited functionality and the TV set as display (output) device has certain
restrictions in terms of appearance of data, fonts, colours (closely related to
the viewing distance). Nevertheless, in order to implement interactive and
personalized advertising, the Information System comprising the backbone of
that platform, should be supported in terms of functionality from a minimalist interface provided to the Viewers.
In
this paper we focus our attention on the design and testing process of the User
Interface (UI) for the Interactive & Personalized Advertisement TV viewer.
The challenges of designing interactive TV applications are based on the differences
of the medium from the traditional PC based Information Systems in terms of
input and output devices, viewing environment, number of users, low level of
expertise in PC usage. The multiple design alternatives must be evaluated for
specific user communities and for specific benchmark tasks. A clever design for one community of users
may be inappropriate for another community. An efficient design for one class
of tasks may be inefficient for another class. Therefore, the approach to the
UI design process is heavily based on User requirements provided by the Users
and the implementation of general IS UI design theory, principles and
guidelines in the challenging TV Viewing environment and finally the continuous
evaluation of the interface in terms of usability. All these, more often than
not, conflict with each other, so we provide the basic parameters –tasks,
users, interaction devices input/output characteristics, etc- in order to
balance the tradeoffs and make decisions about the form and function of the UI.
Human Computer
Interaction fundamental principles are presented in the next section along with
the major characteristics - differences between Television and Computers and
the usability methods among which the appropriate ones will be selected, in
section 3 a comprehensive description of the methodology employed for the
design of the User Interface and the challenges faced during the UI design are
presented, in section 4 a specific example of the design is presented, in
section 5 the evaluation methodology and the testing results and finally
section 6 includes the conclusions and further research.
Human-computer
interaction (HCI) is the scientific field related to usability of systems.
Described by Dix [Dix, 1996] as the study of people, computer technology and
the ways these influence each other. Preece et al [Preece et al, 1994]
defines usability as a measure of the ease with which a system can be learned
or used, its safety, effectiveness and efficiency, and the attitude of its
users towards it. In the early days of computing the majority of users were
technical experts whereas nowadays users have a wide range of knowledge and
experience, making usability a very important design consideration. Underlying
all HCI research and design is the belief that the people using a computer
system should come first. Their needs, capabilities and preferences for
performing various activities should inform the ways in which systems are
designed and implemented. People should not have to change radically to “fit in
with the system”, the system should be designed to match their requirements.
[Bevan, 1990].
User Centered
design is a wide spread practice in the domain of User interface design.
According to Bevan et al [Bevan, 1990] a User-centered design is an approach to
interactive system development which focuses specifically on making systems
usable and safe for their users. User-centred systems empower users and
motivate users to learn and explore new system solutions. The benefits include
increased productivity, enhanced quality of work, reductions in support and
training costs and improved user health and safety. Preece [Preece, 1994]
defines the objective of the user centered design as the system production that
are easy to learn and use by their intended users, and that are safe and
effective in facilitating the activities that people want to undertake.
In order to meet the goals
of usability there are many principles, guidelines and rules to follow.
Principles offer high-level advice to the designer that can be applied widely.
Guidelines are more general, often based on psychological theory or on
practical experience. They may come from diverse sources such as journals,
books, in-house manuals, etc. Guidelines may contradict each other and will
require a certain amount of judgement in their use.
The main principles of HCI given by Preece et
al [Preece et al, 1994]:
§
Know the user population
§
Reduce the cognitive load
§
Engineer for Errors
§
Maintain consistency and clarity
Another set of well known principles are
Schneiderman's [Schneiderman, 1998]
eight golden rules of dialogue design:
§
Strive for consistency: The definition of consistency is elusive
and has multiple levels that are sometimes in conflict. It is also sometimes
advantageous to be inconsistent.
§
Enable frequent users to use shortcuts: As the frequency of use
increases, so do the user’s desires to reduce the number of interactions and to
increase the pace of interaction.
§
Offer informative feedback: For every user action, there should be
system feedback. For frequent and minor actions, the response can be modest,
whereas for infrequent and major actions, the response should be more
substantial.
§
Design dialogs to yield closure: Sequence of actions should
be organized into groups with a beginning, middle, and end.
§
Offer error prevention and simple error handling: As much as
possible, design the system such that users cannot make a serious error; for
example prefer menu selection to form fill-in and do not allow alphabetic
characters in numeric entry fields.
§
Permit easy reversal of actions: As much as possible,
actions should be reversible. This feature relieves anxiety, since the user
knows that errors can be undone, thus encouraging exploration of unfamiliar
options.
§
Support internal locus of control: Experienced operators
strongly desire the sense that they are in charge of the system and that the
system responds to their actions.
§
Reduce short-term memory load. The limitation of human
information processing in short-term memory (the rule of thumb is that humans
can remember “seven-plus or minus-two chunks” of information) requires that
displays be kept simple.
These underlying
principles must be interpreted, refined, and extended for each environment.
An important
aspect in the design of TV Viewer Interface is to understand the
characteristics of the Television in comparison with the characteristics of
Computers in order to provide further insights for the design of this novel TV
UI. The following table (Table
1) compares television and traditional computers along
a number of dimensions.
Table 1 A comparison between TV
and Computers along several dimensions affecting the User Interface design
(Source: Jacob Nielsen, “Useit.com”)
|
Characteristic |
Television |
Computers |
|
Screen resolution (amount
of information displayed) |
Relatively poor |
Varies from
medium-sized screens to potentially very large screens |
|
Input devices |
Remote control and
optional wireless keyboard that are best for small amounts of input and user
actions |
Mouse and
keyboard sitting on desk in fixed positions leading to fast homing time for
hands |
|
Viewing distance |
Several meters |
A few inches |
|
User posture |
Relaxed, reclined |
Upright, straight |
|
Room |
Living room, bedroom (ambiance
and tradition implies relaxation) |
Home office
(paperwork, tax returns, etc. close by: ambiance implies work) |
|
Integration opportunities
with other things on same device |
Various broadcast shows |
Productivity
applications, user's personal data, user's work data |
|
Number of users |
Social: many people can
see screen (often, several people will be in the room when the TV is on) |
Solitary: few
people can see the screen (user is usually alone while computing) |
|
User engagement |
Passive: the viewer
receives whatever the network executives decide to put on |
Active: user
issues commands and the computer obeys |
Table 2 presents a summary of the usability inspection
methods, necessary to perform in order to meet user’s needs. It is apparent
from the table that the methods are intended to supplement each other, since
they address different parts of the usability engineering lifecycle, and since
their advantages and disadvantages can partly make up for each other. It is
therefore highly recommended not to rely on a single usability method to the
exclusion of the others.
There are many
possible ways of combining the various usability methods, and for each design
we may need a slightly different combination, depending on its exact characteristics.
The choice of a usability evaluation method depends on the following:
§
Stage of design (early, middle, late)
§
Novelty of project (well defined versus exploratory)
§
Number of expected users
Table 2 Summary of the usability methods (Source: Jacob Nielsen,
"Usability Engineering")
|
Method Name |
Lifecycle Stage |
Users Needed |
Advantages |
Disadvantages |
|
Heuristic evaluation |
Early design |
None |
Individual usability
problems |
No real users |
|
Performance measures |
Competitive analysis |
At least 10 |
Results easy to compare |
Does not find individual
usability problems |
|
Thinking aloud (coaching) |
Formative evaluation |
3-5 |
Pinpoints users
misconceptions |
Unnatural for users |
|
Observation |
Task analysis, follow-up
studies |
3 or more |
Suggests function and
features. Reveals users’ real tasks |
No experimenter control |
|
Questionnaires |
Task analysis, follow-up
studies |
At least 30 |
Finds subjective user
preferences. |
Pilot work need (to
prevent misunderstandings |
|
Interviews |
Task analysis |
5 |
Flexible, in-depth attitude
and experience probing |
Time consuming. Hard to
analyze and compare |
|
Focus groups |
Task analysis, user
involvement |
6-9 per group |
Spontaneous reactions and
group dynamics. |
Hard to analyze |
|
Logging actual use |
Final testing |
At least 20 |
Finds highly used features |
Analysis programs needed
for huge mass of data. Violation of users privacy. |
|
User feedback |
Follow-up Studies |
Hundreds |
Tracks changes in user
requirements and views |
Special organization
needed to handle replies |
In
this section we present our approach towards personalised interactive TV
advertisement that has been developed as part of the iMEDIA (Intelligent
Mediaton Environment for Digital Interactive Advertising) research project.
iMEDIA aims to provide an intelligent mediation platform for enhancing consumer
and supplier relationships, by establishing the necessary methodologies,
practices and technologies for: a) The broadcasting of personalised interactive
advertising to targeted consumer clusters, providing gateways for access to
product catalogues in other digital
environments b) The analysis of interactive consumer behaviour for
assessing advertising effectiveness c) The empowerment of TV audience as
interactive viewers and active consumers with total control over their private
personal information.
Figure 1: Prototype Design Methodology
Our approach for
the development of the first iMEDIA viewer interface prototype consists of
three phases (Figure
1). The input for the first phase are the User
Requirements collected in facilitated workshops by iMEDIA partners representing
the whole range of the Interactive TV Business Model (Advertisers, Advertising
Agencies, TV Channels, Technology Providers) as well as consumer surveys in
Greece and Italy in May 2000 The objective of this method was - through an
iterative process – to refine and complete the initial requirements in order to provide input for
the development of the system. Also, at the first phase a paper mock –up has
been developed which has been based on the UI design Principles, the TV
Usability requirements. In the next phase the paper mock –up has been subject
to Expert (Heuristic) evaluation in order to remove early usability problems
and proceed with the development of the User interface using Macromedia
Director in order to incorporate videos and prepare a scenario as close as
possible to the actual TV Viewing experience. Entering the third phase, the
usability testing was performed using Focus Groups and Coaching one-to-one
method.
Design Challenges
In designing
iMedia user interface we faced hard choices on a number of issues. These include navigation, the appearance of
messages and on-line help, reversibility, the availability of a special
administrator profile, and the choice between using on-screen soft-keys versus
the use of specialized remote control keys, as presented below.
Navigation: The user should
always be aware of where he/she actually is, what he/she can do, where he/she
can perform and where he/she came from. Within the assessment of input devices
the well-known remote control has turned out to meet the requirements in the
best way, assuming the appropriate graphical UI. The navigation concept of four
arrow keys jumping a focus on the active controls on the screen has proved to
be the best solution for interactive TV applications.
TV Program: In our point of
view the point of reference when designing UIs for the iTV should remain the
traditional TV program -for some time to come at least. Interactivity should be
minimal and performed around the TV program. Therefore, we suggest the use of
pop up –in front of the video- menus and picture in picture functionality
wherever there is a strong need for full screen interactivity (e.g. form
fill-in)
Messages: Tasks with high
frequency of use should have a few confirmation messages, or reside just on
status messages –running in parallel with the current interaction. Ideally, we
should minimize fatal actions. Error
messages should be eliminated. Instead, we should prevent error and assist the
user for task completion or exiting from menu hierarchies.
Online help: This would be
achieved with the display of an optional tool tip bar, which presents short
help about the highlighted item. Furthermore a remote control button or a
special per menu item could provide access to in depth help.
Hardwired vs. Softwired UI: There is a
trade-off between the existence of special function keys on the remote and
hiding the functionality and the access to it, in an on-screen UI. An example
of the latter is the OpenTV case (www.opentv.com), while the
former is -partially- encapsulated in the WebTV case (www.microsoft.com/webtv).
Reversing actions: The existence of
an undo/back button, will allow users to explore in more confidence interactive
content, as they could always reverse their last action.
Menus &
Forms: We suggested the use of menus for the navigation among the main iMEDIA
choices. The menus are laid over the current TV program. The menu navigation is
performed with the cursor and selector keys. Menus are complemented with forms
in cases where user input is required.
Input Devices: Information systems that use the TV as
their interaction mechanism differ in a pervasive number of ways from
traditional systems based on personal computers. Since the interface is
designed with an interactive television setting in mind, the natural choice for
an input device is some kind of remote control. The user must be able to carry
out all actions available in a whole range of interactive television services
using the same device, including controlling a video (pause, rewind etc.),
entering a personal code and moving a pointer/cursor. Most television users will
not use a keyboard, because it is cumbersome to use while sitting on a couch or
a chair. Next, we discuss some alternatives for alphanumeric input.
Figure 2 Microsoft's WebTV virtual
keyboard
§
Mobile Style of Text Input: Alphanumeric input with the numeric keypad of
the remote control would be invalid, unless mobile phones and SMS have been so
successful worldwide. The mobile style –or SMS- of text input proves both
familiar and relatively fast for all categories of users.
 |
Figure 3 Remote Control for the
iMEDIA prototype
Output Device: The resolution
and screen display characteristics of a TV screen are significantly less than
that of most computer monitors. Pages that are designed for the PC screen will
be unattractive of even unreadable on a TV. Also, certain backgrounds display
distorted and unreadable on TV screens. In general, people who watch television
sit further away from their screens than those who sit in front of a computer
monitor. To make it easy for viewers to read and understand interactive
content, authors need to avoid small font sizes.
The iMEDIA Viewer
interface has been based on the Use Cases [iMEDIA Deliverable 1.4], which is a
formal description of the User Requirements, collected at the first phase of
the project. In the following for demonstration purposes we briefly present the
design of the ‘Activate/Deactivate
Viewer’ Use Case.
|
Use Case |
Activate/Deactivate Viewer |
||||
|
Description |
The purpose of this use
case is to illustrate the action taken by the viewer in order to activate
his/her profile. When a viewer sits in front of the TV set, he/she has to let
the set-top box know who is watching. The system presents a list of profiles
and lets the user select his/her identity. |
||||
|
Interaction Style |
Direct manipulation |
||||
|
Attributes |
Profile icons |
||||
|
Appearance |
Semi-transparent overlaid
to a part of the TV screen. |
||||
|
Issues |
Ideally
advertisers would like to know who is in front of the TV just before the
advertisement break, in order to serve targeted advertising. Interface
alternatives: §
display an intrusive menu with profiles overlaid to the program a few
seconds before the break. §
Use the number keys for selecting profile, although there is a
conflict with the use of number keys as TV channel selectors. Alternatively
we can use the arrow and selector keys. §
overlaid menu remains for a timeout period of 5-10 seconds, which is
reset for every key press, so that more than one viewer have the time to
indicate their presence. |
||||
|
User Action |
System Response |
|
|||
|
User watches normal
program flow. |
A few minutes before the
next ad break, a set of icons, representing profiles appears on the TV,
prompting for activation. |
|
|||
|
|
Active profile-icons are
highlighted. |
|
|||
Figure 4: Activate Viewer list of profiles
In this section
we describe the methodology used for the evaluation of the Viewer Interface
(mock-up demo). A concrete methodology is based on sound objectives, relative
to the stage and the general objectives of the project. Test environment
set-up, facilities, staff is described and measured tasks are defined. Finally
we define user profiles and results analysis approach.
Before starting
the testing session, all users attended an introductory presentation of the
system functionality and were shown the testing sessions content. The objective
of these practices was to eliminate as soon as possible the learning curve,
which every new system imposes to its users. In doing so, we expected to reduce
the non-sampling errors, and research bias that are usually present in the
introduction of breakthrough technologies.
The users were
asked to perform three scenarios, as defined in the use cases. In each case, we
use the same videos sequences, so the users remain focused in the interface
elements being tested. We have also used ordinary and common –to the Greek
audience- program and advertisements for the –same- reason of user engagement with
the tested elements. Finally, the scenarios used are a replication of the
normal TV flow of a program, interrupted by ads and then continued, in order to
provide a relevant and familiar –to the current TV experience- testing
environment.
§
Activate/Deactivate Viewer, Bookmark and
Contact me: The user is asked to watch a program flow, which is interrupted by a
set of three advertisements. This scenario starts with the normal program,
which at a certain point of time is overlaid with an activate/deactivate user
system request. The user is expected to press the corresponding to his/her
profile remote control button, in order to indicate his/her presence. Then
comes the advertising break whereas, the second ad contains a “bookmark” and a
“contact me” button. By pressing the “contact me” button, a consumer request
form appears which confirms the promise of the advertiser to get in touch with
the consumer, through an alternative medium –email, phone, etc. Then the
program is continued upon an assumed ending. The user is expected to become
aware of the existence of added value services and understand the implications
of his/her confirmation. If the user clicks the bookmark button, he/she is
asked by the system to indicate his/her profile, and the currently transmitted
advertisement is stored in the Set-top box for viewing later, at viewer’s
convenience. Following the end of the advertisements break the program
continues.
§
Interact with Advertisement: We assume that the user has bookmarked several advertisements during the
previous sessions. The user is asked to take the initiative to interact further
with one of them. The user is expected to open the main menu and navigate to
one of the bookmarked advertisements. Then, browse through the pages of the
interactive ad and complete the session by returning to the normal program
flow. During the menu selection process, the normal program continuous in the
background.
§
User Profile Management: We assume that
several member profiles have been inserted in the system. The user is asked to
perform a set of actions relative to his/her profile. These include viewing the
sections of his/her profile and editing a specific field. The user is expected
to navigate through the profile management menus and forms.
At this stage in
the development of the iMEDIA TV viewer interface the most appropriate methods
for user testing –as explained in a previous section-, are the focus group and
coaching sessions. These two methods give complementary results. The former
stimulates group dynamics and reveals new issues, while the latter allows for
in depth interviewing of specific user profiles, along the dimensions defined
through heuristic and focus group evaluation.
The main points
of the focus group results are summarized in the following:
§
In general, the focus group downplayed on the importance of the iMEDIA
menu system and profile management functionality. The rationale for both
positions was the low task frequency and the high penetration of mobile phones
and as a matter of fact the experience of consumers with the somewhat more
complex mobile phone menus.
§
The focus group stimulated a debate among the participants, which was
focused on the ‘activate profile’ functionality. They were doubtful, whether
viewers will be using this functionality. Provision of targeted ads is
questionable as a form of adequate incentive. More likely, viewers will be
temped with personalization based on previous interactions and free sampling of
products.
§
The ‘contact me’ functionality, although useful as an immediate type of
interaction, was considered intrusive to the program –and advertisement- flow.
Alternatives such as auto-completion of the form fields and simple
interactivity overlaid to the program were suggested. The ‘bookmark’ functionality
was found very promising, although the term used (bookmark) should be revised.
Moreover, participants found no thematic distinction between the ‘contact me’
and ‘bookmark’ functionality, except from the level of immediacy. Finally they
were skeptical about the feasibility of the later-on interaction unless some
incentive or reminder is provided.
§
In addition to the interactive advertisement options during the regular
commercial, the participants got highly involved with the notion of interactive
content. The idea of a scaled down, in terms of complexity and number of pages,
web site was a favorite. Moreover participants stretched the importance of rich
multimedia and proposed a kind of low interactivity or ‘passive interactivity’.
Ideally, the interactive TV should eliminate the need
§
During the focus group session the horizontal theme of remote control
interactivity was continuously mentioned. A group of the participants was fond
of the cursor navigation, while an opposing point of view stretched for the familiarity
of the numeric keypad. Ideally, both methods should be tested with a
statistically significant sample of users. Furthermore, both methods could be
available as a system option to users.
The main points
of the coaching evaluation results are summarized here, alongside with brief
participant profiles. We chose not to test thorough the profile form-fields and
functionality, because, as suggested by the focus group, it is a low frequency
task.
§
The single most important fact was the reconfirmation of the diffusion
of innovation theory. Technology aficionados belong in the innovators group and
welcome more or less everything that is new. Additionally, when asked for their
suggestions, they value customization, complexity and features. Next come the
early adopters group, who value convenience and ease of use, although they tend
to be fairly sophisticated users. This group, from a marketing point of view,
is the most promising one, as they tend to be opinion leaders for the majority
to follow. In our point of view, whatever user interface is offered to
innovators and early adopters will be considered adequate, assuming it is a
valid one. The challenge is how to lure into using the interactive features,
the early and late majority groups.
§
One more interesting aspect discovered through the in depth interviews,
was the different preferences relative to the interactive advertisement
options. The ‘contact me’ scenario was favored for products low in search
qualities and users with little computer experience, while the bookmark option
was preferred from middle-aged users and for products high in search qualities,
such as services or expensive and complex goods.
§
Last but not least, we have received some negative feedback about
various key system features. The terminology of the ‘contact me’ and ‘bookmark’
functionality was considered as poor and not descriptive of the related
feature. The ‘bookmark’ term was judged as irrelevant to the TV experience. The
rationale for this was based on the fact that TV is about entertainment and not
information search, in contrast to the web and library experience. According to
our test users opinions the difference between the two terms was based on a
time axis and not functional one. ‘Contact me’ is about impulse action, while
‘bookmark’ is about later and non-linear or asynchronous to the program flow
interactivity. Finally, TV viewers value highly the normal TV programming,
implying a need for associated services and not substituted to the current TV
features.
Interactive and
Personalized TV offers significant opportunities to advertisers, advertising
agencies, TV Channels but most importantly can turn passive viewers to active
participants, enhancing the TV viewing experience. The design of the viewer
interface has to deal with a number of challenging issues underlying the nature
of the medium and clearly traditional IS User Interface design struggles to
offer the experience required by TV Viewers.
In this paper we have presented our approach for the design of the
Interactive & Personalized TV-viewer interface and its application to
iMEDIA project. We attempted to present
the major forces affecting the user experience in the emerging field of the
interactive TV. These forces, more often than not, conflict with each other, so
we provided the parameters needed to balance the struggle among them. The
result of the user evaluation is a valuable set of issues raised by users,
mapping down alternatives, gained insights and revealed new issues, which can
be used towards the development of an interactive TV system that addresses
viewer needs.
Further research
would address the customization of the interface to accommodate diverse user
groups, the implementation of the experience gained by the patterns used in
mobile telephones as input devices, the minimization of the Viewer actions
needed to interact with the medium, the interface mechanism that simplifies the
process that users have to follow in order to declare their presence in front
of the TV set enabling the personalization of advertisements. Finally, an
important contribution would be the answer on what would be the most efficient
type of interactive advertisement (apart from the ‘bookmark’ and ‘contact’
type) that would allow the viewers to instantly interact with it and not
distracting their attention from the next advertising message.
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* This study was partially funded by the IST-1999-11038, iMEDIA Project of the Commission of the European Union
