Investigating new user experience challenges in

iTV: Sociability

David Geerts & Licia Calvi

Sociability and iTV

Sociability

Core parameter when evaluating impact on users' communication and collaboration

Needs to be operationalized

Like usability

To help developers design social applications

No guidelines yet

Relevant for

Online games, internet (social software), interactive television, mobile applications, …

Sociability and iTV

Television is inherently social

Watching television is still family activity

Co-viewing is still dominant practice

Consequences

Social context

Opportunity to let people communicate, form communities, collaborate

E.g. Social software for television

BusinessWeekOnline

AmigoTV: a social TV experience through triple-play convergence

Sociability and communities

Community creation and development

Social interaction

Cooperation

Collaboration

Different commmunities / different purposes

People with the same interest

Exchange information

People who share phatic relationship

Social mood/bond more important

People who work together

Work-related interaction and collaboration

Basic sociability questions

How can technology support and encourage communication and interaction among different users?

Which kind of experience do users expect?

Which kind of information are people willing to disclose?

Which kind of activities should the technology support?

Which sort of interaction should the system make possible?

Designing for sociability

Not self-evident

Designers of social user interfaces need

Guidance from design guidelines

Evaluation methods

Heuristics

Create social software that truly supports

Social interaction

Community building

Collaboration

Common themes in papers

New social situations with mobile itv

Primary and secondary context

Awareness of video camera

People behave differently when they know that what they do (primary context) can be recorded on mobile video and distributed on the internet (secondary context)

Sociability issues for designing usable mobile iTV applications

Positive versus negative sociability issues

Tool for enhancing communication vs. isolating individuals or disturbing others

Privacy – collaboration – scalablity – personalization – behavior

Which characteristics and interaction schemes are socially acceptable?

When will people give up their privacy? What are the mobile applications that will win public acceptance?

Cross-media / new genres

Avatopia

Exchange between internet (3D web forum) and broadcast tv

Positive spiral that works well

TV: low effort, high reach / Web: high effort, low reach

Interactive movie elements in pervasive game

Live action role playing: interact with the gameplay via iTV application

“Trans reality gaming”

Accidental lovers

Participatory fiction: audience interacts with mobile phone to generate stories with random elements and cyclic structure

Do cross-media applications work best for social itv applications?

Which new genres can we expect to work well?

Collaboration

AvatopiaCollaborative creation of animations: capture realtime action in avatar world (cf. machinima’s)

Collaboration tools with strong audiovisual impact for television

InstantShareCamCollaborative video making / co-directed events

Instant: responsiveness and smoothness of system has to reflect the social co-creativity

Interactive movie elements in a pervasive gameSupport collaboration and social interaction among players with different roles

Sociability issues for designing usable mobile iTV applications

Need of defining social-oriented collaborative featuresTurn-taking, visual feedback from other users’ input, …

How to support collaboration in (mobile)iTV applications?

Diverse user roles and behaviors

Sociability issues for designing usable mobile iTV applications

Passive vs. active viewers

Need for personalization

Interactive movie elements in a pervasive gameSpectators vs. players

InstantShareCamAmateurs vs. semi-professionals vs. producers

TV-LIBRASDeaf people vs. hearing people

How to support these different (social) roles / behaviors in one user interface?

Tools for sociability

AvatopiaCommunicative tools: arranging hearings, initiating text conversations, creating propaganda bots, placing posters and flyers, posting protest lists, collaborative creation of animations

InstantShareCamAmateur snapshooters: instant sharing, connectivity, multiple streams

Semi-professionals: remote directing, extensibility of social network, collaborative editing capability

Interactive movie elements in a pervasive gameWeb-based application: interactive surveillance application and communication tool with players at location

Mobile application: broadcast on portable console and download feature for players at location and selected external users

Broadcast: on television channels across Europe

TV-LIBRASChat between deaf and hearing people

E-learning possibilities

Which tools can be used to enhance sociability?

Are there generic tools or is every social interface unique?

Social action / social inclusion

TV-LIBRASSign language important for deaf people

Social inclusion of deaf people

AvatopiaOpen democracy: no technological enforcement of community rules

Collaboration a promising direction for facilitating commitment and societal action

Sociability issues for designing usable mobile iTV applications

Scenario: after terrorist attack identification of victims

Mobility in itv may bring benefit to a community

Validity of information crucial factor

Which tools draw people closer, bring them into action, support inclusion?

How to prevent intentional or unintentional misuse?

Designing and evaluating sociability

AvatopiaParticipatory design process and cultural probes

Cyberethnographical methods

InstantShareCamExperience prototyping

Not only product but also marketing websiteService infrastructure – software and hardware interface –

business setting

Accidental loversIterative testing

Paper prototyping / storyboarding, simulating user input, using chat software

Sociability issues for designing usable mobile iTV applications

Investigating relationships between tasks, devices, interfaces and the environment with scenarios

Which methods are appropriate for designing andevaluating sociability in (mobile) iTV?