Digital Television For All

I've now had a better look at the DTI-commissioned report Digital Television For All: A report on usability and accessible design (PDF).

While it's a shame that the detailed work on usability evaluation and user trials conducted by John Clarkson and Simeon Keates of the Engineering Design Centre at Cambridge is not included in the report (published separately - I will try to track this down), the report provides food for thought and some potentially far-reaching recommendations.

The report recognises that for the present, most people will be accessing DTV through set-top boxes with separate remote control devices, rather than through integrated TV equipment. The usability issues here are multifarious, ranging from poor device integration, multiplicity of remote controls, the 'mental model' of interaction with a TV-style device versus that with a computer-style device, right through to the usability of content and electronic programme guides.

One good aspect of the study is that it encompasses the entire user experience from pre-purchase and purchase, through to installation, tuning, joint operation with other devices, finding out what's on, navigating menus, accessing settings and accessing interactive content. While the report focuses more on accessibility (including cognitive impairment) than usability per se, the authors recognise that even those users without impairment would be affected by the issues raised.

In both the usability evaluation phase and the user trials, the report points to a huge array of problems with current DTV equipment. The authors believe that manufacturers already compete in terms of ease of use, if only in the superficial marketing sense, but that there are good arguments for industry collaboration to achieve true ease of use for the entire DTV experience: there would be gains in improved social learning, reduction in channel costs such as retail staff training, and minimisation of system issues that 'fall between the cracks' of different pieces of equipment in a system.

The solution proposed? Give an an industry group the task of addressing cross-industry interaction design for content, with the aim of producing a code of practice to be used as a reference source; and integrate this activity with industry-wide system interaction design.

This might not be welcomed by manufacturers, but seems a sensible route if high take-up is to be achieved (the UK government aims to switch off analogue TV between 2006 and 2010).

As the report points out, "Usability is not an altruistic goal. If DTV products are perceived to be usable, then the market size will be increased and the products will reach beyond the technology literate early adopters who are perhaps quite tolerant of poor usability, towards groups who are less au fait with technology..."

Clarkson & Keates usability evaluation and trials (Appendix E of the Report)

Some earlier reports on DTV:
Easy TV 2002 Research Report (Word)
ITC UsE: Ease of Use and Knowledge of Digital and Interactive Television (PDF) (a study of ease of use perceptions only)