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El pasado 23 de Mayo, Use8 – The User Experience Society- presentó “Broadband TV 2.0”, un evento donde estudiantes, académicos y profesionales de primera línea reflexionaron y compartieron puntos de vista sobre el futuro de la TV digital interactiva desde el punto de vista de la experiencia del usuario.
Renata Yumi, de la Universidad de Brighton, nos ofrece esta crónica del evento. Muchas gracias Renata!

BROADBAND TV 2.0 (23/05/2008)

Broadband TV 2.0 was a very interesting event held by Use8 at Jurys Inn Hotel, on 23rd May 2008. The event’s main discussion was towards new ways to apply the usabilities principles and guidelines to the digital television media. It started with OpenTV presentation, followed by PushButton’s case study and finished with a discussion panel.

The presentations started with Matthew Huntington, VP Solutions Marketing of OpenTV, who gave an interesting speech about “Evolving the user interface for Television”.  Firstly, he discussed how viewers’ behaviour is changing, not only because of the inversion of mass media economics and the threat to TV ads, but also due to the recently explosion of content on digital television. Then, after affirming that a new approach is needed, he showed the solutions based on researches that have been carried out by OpenTV. A video demonstration of their Electronic Programme Guide presented those solutions: new ways to navigate and to display programmes’ information based on small screens rather than text, and the media card feature which presents recommendation and enable the viewers to save the content into a library, which can be accessed whenever they want.

Sequentially, Paula Byrne, Managing Director of PushButton, was the second to present. She introduced the case study on “Designing the ESPN experience”. The case was based on the development of ESPN360.com, a broadband network for live sports programming. According to Paula, the challenge was to create something for direct users. Working closely with ESPN marketing department, they aimed to achieve the correct look and feel based on the brand guidelines, in order to provide the best user experience, motivating their users to return and access the system again. However, the speaker emphasized that, although everybody believes and aims to create a clean and easy-to-use interface for interactive applications, the reality is completely different. When working with brands, it is always necessary to provide room to everyone. Even trying to do your best to improve the user experience, the fact that there is a sponsor waiting to be exposed and seen can never be forgotten. For this reason, she believes that the integration between design and sponsorship will become better and better in the nearly future.

After a break, when refreshments were served and the innovative BITe prototype was displayed, the discussion panel started with the introduction of a question by the panel chair, Richard Griffiths, Programme Leader for the Postgraduate Programme in Interactive Technologies at the University of Brighton: what are the challenges to create services to enhance the user experience on digital television? According to Nicholas Timon, Business Development Director for Brightoncove EMEA, the most important point is the content. The best way to provide a good user experience is by understanding the content, knowing how to identify what is relevant, how it can be displayed and the best environment to be presented.

However, for Owen Daly-Jones, Director for Serco Usability Services, the challenges continue the same as years ago: understand the user needs, understand what everybody wants from television. He believes that television was always interactive, and continues being the big window in the middle of our living rooms. He affirmed that he does not buy the idea of social television, regarding sharing and others recommendations; neither the idea of the success of emerging services.

Sharing the same opinion, Dr Emmanuel Tseklevesis, Lecturer of Brunel University, said that we need to put the technology aspects aside and focus on what the user needs. By letting the user to lead the ideas, the best solutions are going to be found. Besides, a short discussion about the different generations of viewers and how they influence the usability of television was held.

According to David Wray, Co Founder of Global Digital Broadcast TV, a way to overcome the differences amongst users is by checking the specificities of their profiles and making the necessary arrangements in order to attend their needs. And the conversation ended with a brief overview on what the speakers considered ‘hot’ regarding Broadband TV. In Nicholas Timon’s point of view, the interesting fact would be the real connection of TV and PC. For David Wray, it is relevant to emphasize that more important than thinking about the future of technology, would be to find ways to explore the current technology in order to make profit now. On the other hand, Owen Daly-Jones said that he believes in the game consoles’ potential to substitute set-top boxes, while Dr Emmanuel Tseklevesis focused on the changes in how we experience TV, mainly with the possibility of people creating their own network and with the development of 3D TV.

It was a very nice evening, not only for all the relevant points that were brought up and discussed, but also for the possibility of sharing your views and expectations with academics, young and experienced professionals. Indeed, a perfect environment for growing ideas and building up networks.
Renata Yumi Shimabukuro
University of Brighton
renatayumi.s@gmail.com
Supported by the Programme Alban, the European Union Programme of High Level Scholarships for Latin America, scholarship no. E07M402467BR.

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