Merging Sora ITV and Mickey ITV - Case Study Example

Introduction Interactive TV these days can be found in almost every home. Interactive TV (iTV) is the umbrella term for everything digital that viewers can navigate through from their TV. Ranging from the lower end of the scale like being able to lower the volume, to the cutting edge where the viewer determines the contestants’ fate with a press of a button. Even with all the products available in the market today, nothing fits exactly what I need. What i need is a more interactive and simple iTV with a easy-to-navigate screen. Description of Sora iTV Sora iTV will be a custom social network built around a television. This new platform enables me to connect with friends with similar interests as me in terms of sporting events, programs and movies. The main idea behind Sora iTV is Fun, Choice, Convenience, Empowerment and Control. Functionalities of Sora iTV Sora iTV will have my personalized TV guide of all upcoming events and episodes for all the shows and sporting events I like. It will also list what my friends or schoolmates are watching. Another feature of Sora iTV will be discussion board, whereby I can talk to friends about our favorite programs and events. New ideas on interesting shows will be floated around and I will later include them in the list of my shows and episodes. Users of Sora iTV will take part only in discussions that have comments from their friends about the specific shows and relevant news articles about those programs and their actors. The posts will be streamed using a Twitter-like interface and filtered by show. This will be possible because the system will look for keywords related to specific programs. Designing the user interface of Sora iTV The design of Sora iTV aims create a large display or work area. With this in mind the controls will be pushed to the edge of the screen. Another important factor in screen design for Sora iTV is the distance between me (the viewer) and the television set. Usually in the case of a computer, I sit with two feet of the monitor. But in the case of the TV the distance is usually four to six feet from the set. What this means for the design is that text and controls must be oversized so that they are legible from a distance. The CD-I Design Handbook Philips Interactive Media Systems emphasizes the following when choosing font and color to use for interactive television user interface design: Use simply constructed sans-serif fonts. Don’t use a font size smaller than 22 points. Don’t use red as the text color. Use anti-aliasing to increase readability. Use soft, low contrast outlining or drop shadows on text to increase the edge definition of the letters. Navigation within the interface is another consideration to make. Historically, viewing of television has been a passive action. Interactivity was limited to browsing through the channels, varying the volume and turning off the set occasionally. One thing to keep in mind when designing the user interface for iTV applications is that there won’t be a keyboard or a direct pointing device like a mouse. Most of my iTV applications will use remote control device, with four arrow keys and a select button. When the navigation is this limited, you must take care in the arrangement of navigable objects on the screen (Shneiderman 1992). For example, functional buttons should be grouped into one column while navigational buttons should be in another group. Moving from one group to the other is one click left or right. Minimize the number of button presses that the user must make to use your screens (Luther 1989). Having done that here is how Sora iTV user interface design will look like. Interactivity with Sora iTV Interactivity is what sets Sora iTV apart from the other available iTVs. This interactivity will be enhanced by simplicity in controls and navigation. One of the ways of interacting with Sora iTV is the ability to communicate with my friends through discussion threads. This will be enabled through a Twitter-like interface. Friends and schoolmates will be able to rate the shows, episodes and sporting events. Top rated programs will show at the top of the list for recommended programs to watch. The ability to interact is further taken to the mobile and portable devices like cellphones, iPhones, iPods and tablets. Supported operating systems include iOS and Android. Having your mobile phone with you means having your programs and movies with you where ever you go. Sora iTV will also be SMS-based interactive with a WAP-Based Voting application and Mobile Messaging Applications. These will enable interaction with short messages with the network operators. I will have polls whereby TV viewers can respond via SMS and the WAP-Based voting application. I have online friends from other countries. To enable them interact with Sora iTV, I will offer four languages, English, French, Spanish and Arabic. English will be the default language since most of my friends and schoolmates speak English. Simple language will be used for the controls. For example Play, Pause, Turn off etc (View Sora iTV design diagram to see more examples) Innovations and New Concepts in Sora iTV I have introduced new concepts in Sora iTV to make it more attractive to viewers, more interactive and simpler to navigate, compared to the available interactive television stations I have subscribed to before. One of these is the sleek user interface with simple icons placed at the corners of the screen, thus leaving a big view area. The icons themselves are easy to see and arranged in a grouped manner, i.e. navigational buttons are on the bottom most part of the screen, program and shows buttons on the left most part and the discussion and polls buttons on the right most part of the screen. Another concept I have introduced is the ability of Sora iTV to detect a new viewer. It will do this by looking through its database and retrieving the viewer information. New viewers obviously will not be found in the database. The aim of monitoring viewers through a database is to know there tastes, preferences and likes. Thus when a viewer is on his screen he or she is able to view what interests him or her. The WAP-Based Voting Application and the SMS-Based interactivity are also new concepts I intend to use in Sora iTV. Testing ideas on launch of Sora iTV Ideas on Sora iTV will be put forward after consultations with my friends and potential viewers. I will conduct a survey which will put my ideas across the target audience. They will then say what they think and what I can improve on. Their invaluable feedback will enable me design an interactive user interface for Sora iTV and know what to include as part of programs. I will also talk to my instructors and solicit ideas on improving Sora iTV. I will also put my ideas across and ask for their insight. By doing this, I will polish on these ideas and be in a position to come up with an interactive television that meet my requirements. Having a look at existing interactive televisions will also give me a rough idea on what they lack and what I can improve on through my own interactive television, Sora iTV. Task 2 Description of Mickey iTV and its functions The second design involves a design of Mickey iTV for Mickey Smith, an investment banker at Citibank. Mickey, 30 is my friend and wants his iTV to have the following functions: 1. Ability of Mickey iTV to stream share prices at the New York and NASDAQ stock exchanges live. 2. He wants to be able to watch business news from the Wall Street. He is interested in mainly mergers and acquisition which is the kind of work he usually does at Citibank. 3. Ability of Mickey to show sporting events, especially the European Premiership football games, since he is a Manchester United diehard. In watching games, Mickey wants to be able choose camera angles when watching games. 4. T-Commerce: He wants to buy pizza without dialing a number. 5. Ability of Mickey iTV to build up profiles of viewers over time. This will enable him to know there tastes, preferences and what to display on their screens. 6. Interactive Goodies: this will entail being able to record shows and even to display advertisements which can be clicked to find out more 7. Ability to view on an iOS like Android and Window CE with apps to enable interactivity with mobile devices. Mickey iTV Design Just like the design of Sora iTV, Mickey needs a lot of space left as viewing area. The share prices and currencies should stream on the topmost part of the screen. Navigation, usability and font should be formal so that Mickey iTV looks serious. This will attract the viewers who are business-oriented who are part of Mickey iTV’s target audience. Here is the basic design of Mickey iTV. Interaction with Mickey iTV Mickey needs simple controls on his remote. He considers too many controls a waste of time and will complicate his ability to interact with his iTV since he also believes that the key thing to interactivity is simplicity. To make his work easier Mickey wants to include T-Commerce on his iTV. T-commerce utilizes the Twitter Platform to do simple tasks like ordering pizza or fried chicken. Mickey finds this useful to him because at the end of the day after work he is too tired to do anything and if interactive television will make this easier, the better for him. Mike also needs a control to see who is watching Mickey iTV and what programs they are watching. By creating and building up on their profile, Mickey will be able to filter his content, remove programs with poor ratings and customize the screen for each viewer. He believes this will build on the popularity of his iTV, after which he can partner with advertising firms to place advertising content on Mickey iTV. Innovations and new concepts for Mickey iTV Mickey has decided to input a live streaming of share prices of the NASDAQ and New York stock exchange. Being a banker, he thought this would help those viewers with investments at the stock exchange monitor their portfolios. Since part of his target audience is those in business circles, Mickey says his television will also be educative. Mickey iTV will feature business news channels. Other key innovative features for Mickey iTV will include T-Commerce and Interactive Goodies. With T-Commerce, viewers can sit on the couch and order food and drinks without dialing a phone. Interactive goodies will entail being able to record shows and even to display advertisements which can be clicked to find out more. Mickey expects to earn revenue from this since he intends to get paid by advertising firms after placing their adverts on viewers’ screens. Meeting Mickey’s Requirements By being able to view a live stream of shares trading on the floor of stock exchanges, Mickey can stay relevant to his current career. Part of what he does at Citibank is to monitor the trading at the floors of NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange. If he can take this home, he will always stay informed. Through Mickey iTV, he will also subscribe to business channels and will thus be able to know what is happening in the business world. According the Mickey, the idea here is information. Another requirement which will be met is the ability to automate most things and do them with the click of a remote control. Mickey is able to order pizza and drinks while at the comfort of his home by just clicking on the remote control button. This will be enabled through the T-Commerce. Mickey can also view the advertisements and see what is being offered in the market for sale. He would then be able to make informed decisions on what he needs. Testing Mickey’s ideas To test Mickey’s ideas, I sought the opinion of people in similar jobs as Mickey. Most of them had similar view to Mickey’s. This is attributable to their kind of jobs and the mindsets they have concerning interactivity. Most are business oriented and this can be attributed to the fact that they wanted their interactive televisions to earn extra income for them at some point. Task 3 Comparison of Sora iTV and Mickey iTV Design descriptions Sora iTV is more student-oriented and is centered on the themes Fun, Choice, Convenience, Empowerment and Control. This explains the choice of colors, fonts and navigation. The features are also more student-friendly. For instance, a Twitter-like discussion platform will enable one to post anything concerning shows and episodes on Sora iTV. Another main feature is a personalized guide. Students would like to personalize their profile, keep what they like and discard the rest. This is the main idea here. Sora iTV has made use of the portable devices by enabling programs in mobile operating systems. The ability to text comments and use the WAP-Based Voting application are some important features in Sora iTV. On the other hand, Mickey iTV is centered on being informative, educative and as a means of simplifying tasks. Like Sora iTV, it has a bigger view area. Mickey iTV can stream share prices from the NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange live. This will enable business oriented viewers (which happen to be the main target audience) to be more informed. The subscription to business channels is also a feature aimed at making Mickey iTV educative. Notably, Mickey iTV should earn income after sometime due to the adverts that will be put on viewers screens. Other features entrenched in Mickey iTV are a T-Commerce Platform and interactive goodies. Differences between Sora iTV and Mickey iTV The two designs have exhibited significant differences in terms of the features involved and the levels of interactivity. These differences are attributable to the different backgrounds of the two owners of the designs. Evidently, Sora iTV is more interactive. It has a discussion thread, a WAP-Based Voting application and the ability to text comments to the discussion board. Mickey iTV has the ability to stream shares and currency prices live and the ability to use T-Commerce and interactive goodies. However, there are not many differences in terms of fonts, colors and navigations, since both would like few buttons on the screen and a large viewing area. Mickey iTV is business-oriented while Sora iTV is not. Again, this is attributable to the different backgrounds and the goals in mind when designing the two iTVs. Mickey iTV will have adverts on viewers screen and earn some revenues. It also has a T-Commerce platform and interactive goodies button selling different goods. Sora iTV doesn’t have that because that will not interest my friends who are mostly students. All they need is to watch shows and chat. Business channels will bore them. How the differences come about Looking at the differences between the two television stations, Sora iTV and Mickey iTV, it is quite clear that user requirements are responsible for most of variation in designs. Mickey needs an informative iTV which can stream share and currency prices and also show business channels. On the other hand, I want an interactive television to just watch interesting programs and communicate with my friends and schoolmates. Our requirements are totally different. Other considerations responsible for the differences in designs are the different backgrounds and ages. Being a banker, Mickey has chosen what goes hand in hand with his type of work. Also being more mature, Mickey is not so fussy about the functionalities he wants on his interactive television. I chose my features and design because that is what would make me relevant to my young viewers. Sora iTV suites me best because that is what I find more interactive and relevant in my day and age. With Sora iTV, I can discuss with my friends about interesting programs and use my mobile phone for the Chat Based and WAP applications. Mickey iTV would be boring to my target audience, who are students and friends. Most of them would not sit down to watch the business channels since it doesn’t interest them at all. Merging Sora iTV and Mickey iTV Both Sora iTV and Mickey iTV has some aspects to borrow from each other. For instance, while Sora iTV is mainly about Fun, Choice, Convenience, Empowerment and Control, Mickey iTV is about being Educative and Informational. These two aspects need to be combined to come up with a powerful design that is not just about having fun but also educative. At the same time it’s not about being too formal and business-oriented but being able to relieve stress at the end of the day. We will modify Sora iTV and add additional features to it. For example, we could add additional features to Sora iTV to include some business channels. We could also build a T-Platform on Sora iTV so that we can enjoy the advantages of T-Commerce. The design modifications here would enable use to meet the goals simplicity and interactivity, while at the same time being more informative and educative. Advertising on Sora iTV is another feature from Mickey iTV that we could take advantage of. This will give us some revenues. Works Cited Philips. The CD-I Design Handbook Philips Interactive Media Systems. New York: Random, 2005. Print. Shneiderman, Ben. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction. New York: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1992. Print. Read More