CHI 2006 Workshop

Investigating new user experience challenges in iTV: mobility & sociability

Part I: pervasive itv

Dr. Anxo Cereijo Roibàs

Pervasive iTV

Users’ adoption of powerful handhelds with multimedia features, together with an increasing interoperability between platforms, is resulting in expanding the iTV consumption beyond the domestic context.

We can define this convergence of multimedia systems in different platforms as ‘pervasive TV’.

TV: coming to a mobile near you!

Virgin trials mobile TVBy Tim RichardsonPublished Friday 3rd June 2005 12:40 GMT

O2 trials mobile TVBy electricnews.netPublished Friday 13th May 2005 10:31 GMT

Orange pushes TV on 3G displayBy Guy Kewney, Newswireless.netPublished Sunday 22nd May 2005 22:30 GMT

Nokia makes the case for mobile TVBy FaultlinePublished Wednesday 31st August 2005 12:39 GMT

TV licence needed for TV-to-mobile servicesBy Tim RichardsonPublished Friday 24th June 2005 14:15 GMT

Commercial and Trial Mobile TV Launches Worldwide

Source: Operators and Yankee Group, 2005

Programs: the Korean case

Source: Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute study for full-length programs. 1,000 survey respondents ranging in age from 15 to 50. October 2003.

Mobile TV: a success?

Problem statementHowever, there are several reasons that might undermine the success of these deployments:

The intrinsic physical diversity between both interfaces (TV and handhelds) making them unsuitable for the same mode of delivering of content.

The context of use: TV is traditionally used in a domestic private environment and usually involves social sharing, while mobile phones are mainly used in public environments and entail an individual experience.

Users are becoming increasingly nomadic spending less time at home and in the office. This implies a mounting need for performing our daily tasks whilst on the move. Therefore, unlike TV, handhelds are regularly used in different situations and with different purposes; they are likely to be used as an auxiliary tool to assist users’ in a main activity

Mobile services can be related to the specific context of the user (context awareness).

There are operability differences: TV (including interactive TV) is considered a passive or low interactive medium while handhelds entail high interactivity and connectivity.

Technological trends

diffusion of powerful handhelds with multimedia features

increasing interoperability between platforms, communications are going pervasive.

swap from one-to-one to one-to-many connectivity (network, Bluetooth, infrared…)

development of context-aware applications

evolution towards novel forms of content and advanced ways of interaction.

Ethno-Design Research: Making a Space for the User in the Future of Media Devices

With the proliferation of smart and connected devices, the world of ubiquitous connectivity and communication is no longer a far-off dream and TV becomes an exciting playground for innovation and new user experiences. As we began to explore the concept of “home” in this context, it soon became clear that our investigation need to include a multiplicity of devices, products and services that are deeply integrated into all aspects of daily life. Consequently, we found ourselves looking for product ideas that would provide solutions that could extend technology beyond the desktop and living room to allow people to communicate, play games, access pertinent information, watch TV and video anyplace, any time and anywhere. To accomplish this goal, we developed the ethno-design method, which consists of a multi-stage process in which both user and design research methodologies are fused into an integrated and comprehensive approach. The outcomes of the application of this multi-faceted research method to the design of future vision projects assisted product planning by defining strategic opportunities for TV and mobile devices with unprecedented input from our customers.

Home Entertainment UI Continuum: Cell Phone, HTPC and iTV

There is an ongoing convergence of broadcast and communication networks, as well as the functionalities available in computers, communication devices and consumer electronics. This convergence, however, does not yet occur in the User Interface (UI) level, where each devices has it’s own navigational style and incompatible input devices. It is expected that different devices should require different UIs, but there should be a level of consistency amongst these to facilitate the convergence of devices to the end-user. We call this the User Interface Continuum.

In this paper we verify the application of this continuum trough an experiment where we use a Bluetooth-enabled cell phone as the remote control (RC) for a Home Theater PC (HTPC).

Mobile Cinema - Context-aware Interactive Video

In this paper we describe a novel approach for interactive cinema based on context-aware narration using location detection technologies on handheld computers. The paper describes both the artistic approach and the technical infrastructure developed to realize a unique mobile cinema environment. The described framework has been used in a video production workshop at the ISNM, where five interactive cinema concepts have been developed and shown during a public demonstration. A new type of user experience has been established by placing the viewer inside the movie’s physical locations during playback.

An Architecture Proposal for Integrating Digital Television and Mobile Devices

This paper describes an architecture to provide users with available services for multiple devices, such as TVs and portable devices like mobile phones, handhelds and notebooks. The integration between the Interactive Digital Television (i-TV) broadcasters and the other telecommunication networks will happen in a transparent way for the user, that is, the users will access data and services that can be either in broadcast transmission or telecommunication network, and these data will be filtered according to their context of use

iDV: a new look into iTV and interactivity

The authors argue that the successful introduction of an interactive visual medium, currently referred to in terms reliant on the conceptual framework of television, is dependant on the introduction of an entirely different paradigmatic framework for the discussion, design and implementation of interactive visual media. The following discussion explores both the formulation of the conceptual framework.

How good Mobile TV needs to be?

Converged technologies are seen as the new leap forward in integrating the latest advances on various digital mobile radio networks. Nevertheless, the new levels of flexibility that these new technologies could introduce increases further the complexity confronted by users, and potentially lowers the usability and ease of use of, especially for services like mobile TV. Our research goal was to understand which an acceptable quality is for mobile TV. We concluded that the methods proposed by the existing standards did not match our goals because of the conditions in which our content would be shown and the qualities to be implanted are very far from the existing standards. Next, we described an innovative methodology introduced last year based on psychophysics, for sport sequences. We have adapted that methodology and carried out a study were we tested two situations, mobile TV sequences on a mobile phone screen (MPEG 4 compression) and PDA screen (MPEG 2 compression). We tested three types of content: news, sport and music video clip. In the final paper we would include a brief summary of the results.

Dispersing the Interactivity: Mobiles and Electronic Programme Guides

This paper investigates how hand-held technology might be used to augment existing electronic programme guides (EPGs), to better support television planning. Using the results of a television planning diary study, we developed and evaluated design concepts to allow users to learn about potentially interesting programmes via their mobile as well as using recommendations from family and friends. We present results from a user evaluation that suggest migrating some of planning activities to a hand-held device has promise.

User-led Interactive Television: Identifying and Addressing Some of the Barries to Accessible Interactive TV

Digital Television is already in people’s houses, and in the UK, soon all houses. This does not however ensure high penetration rates and user satisfaction. People involved with the creation of DTV services should reach out more to their audiences and listen to them and adopt a more user-led approach. Furthermore iTV specialists from different fields need to come together to discuss and collaborate more on Digital Television issues. UITS project has been drafted to contribute towards the above by conducting several empirical studies, and organising a number of events that promote both a user-led approach but crucially also a technological strategy that assists in the effective, efficient production of broadcast services. Finally Digital TV shareholders need to start thinking about the barriers to using digital media and come up with solutions in making the technology more transparent for usage by non-technical staff as well to ensure more creative, compelling, user-friendly and accessible Digital TV services.