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User interface evaluation of interactive TV: a media studies perspective

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Abstract

A diverse user population employs interactive TV (ITV) applications in a leisure context for entertainment purposes. The traditional user interface (UI) evaluation paradigm involving efficiency and task completion may not be adequate for the assessment of such applications. In this paper, we argue that unless ITV applications are evaluated with consideration for the ordinary TV viewer, they are going to be appropriate only for the computer literate user, thus excluding the TV audience from easy access to information society services. The field of media studies has accumulated an extensive theory of TV and associated methods. We applied the corresponding findings in the domain of ITV to examine how universal access to ITV applications can be obtained. By combining these results with emerging affective quality theories for interactive products, we propose a UI evaluation framework for ITV applications.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Jens Riegelsberger and Mina Vasalou for their suggestions on early drafts of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2BT, UK

    Konstantinos Chorianopoulos

  2. Department of Management Science and Technology, Patision 76, Athens University of Economics and Business, 104 34, Athens, Greece

    Diomidis Spinellis

Authors
  1. Konstantinos Chorianopoulos
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  2. Diomidis Spinellis
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Konstantinos Chorianopoulos.

Appendix: example application

Appendix: example application

In this section, we provide a brief overview of an example application for one of the proposed UI evaluation concepts [3].

The objective of the study was to evaluate user preferences for an ITV application that offers clip skipping for music video television and an animated character for presenting information. We chose to use the affective quality instrument of Hassenzahl et al. [17], because it is validated, freely available, short and features an easy-to-understand verbal scale. Furthermore, a fulfilling television experience depends on the subjective evaluations of the entertaining value of the content, a characteristic that is partially captured by the construct of hedonic quality. The experiment was designed to address two of the main issues that have been identified in ITV UI design: (a) local storage navigation through simple video clip skipping and (b) presentation of related information through alternative presentation styles. We formulated the objectives of the study as research hypotheses.

  • Hypothesis 1: Hedonic quality will be greater for a clip-skipping music TV channel compared with a fixed one.

  • Hypothesis 2: Hedonic quality will be greater for an animated character compared with a transparent information box for the presentation of related information.

Each participant received two experimental treatments (within groups) of the UI for interactive music video television: (1) the animated character and (2) the transparent box, while both setups offered video clip skipping with ad insertion. After the end of each session, participants evaluated separately the hedonic quality of (a) traditional music video television (all participants selected were frequent viewers of music TV), (b) music video television with clip skipping, (c) information presentation with the transparent box and (d) information presentation with the animated character. We ran tests with 21 users (recruited from the postgraduate and undergraduate departments of our university). Ages were between 22 and 35 (13 men and 8 women). Users were assigned with a random order to each treatment and the order of the music video clips was also randomized for each session. The video clip related information and the remote control were the same for all sessions.

The study was performed in a relaxed setting, using a traditional TV set and a remote control. The testing session contained 16 video clips and advertising breaks with three ads for every four songs (approximately every 15 min), just like a commercial music video television channel. The study followed the selective exposure paradigm. Users were free to choose the music video clip they preferred to watch, like they would do if the experiment was not running. In order to ensure selective exposure, the users were allowed a maximum of 1/3 of watching time, out of the total session duration, that is a maximum of approximately 20 min out of the 1-h program duration. Users could press the power-off button on the remote to end the testing session and they were told to watch as much as they liked, between 10 and 20 min.

We found (Table 4) that the hedonic quality score (scale is from 0 to 10; scores less/more than 5 represent negative/positive attitude) for the traditional setup is close to neutral (average 5.1/10). This finding can be explained by the fact that music video television is a pervasive experience and feels familiar to consumers, irrespective of its delivery format. In contrast, video clip skipping (average 7.5/10) allowed experimental subjects to watch favourite music video clips and despite the dynamic insertion of ads, the hedonic quality score was significantly higher (two-tailed t-test, p=0.002, n=21). Therefore, we argue that simple video clip skipping, similar to the track-skipping facility available in audio CD players, enhances the perceived television entertainment value, when compared with the fixed TV channel.

Table 4 Mean hedonic quality scores for the clip-skipping music video television are significantly higher
Full size table

Consistent with the selective exposure theory, users actively sought for the video clips and songs they preferred. This kind of interactive behaviour may be due to the experimental setting and may not have external validity; users may have been more engaged than normal because the application was novel to them and because they were specifically asked to use the new system. They reported that they used the skip functionality mainly to skip a music video that they disliked and to a lesser extent to get to a favourite one. Either way, the clip-skipping feature was liked, despite the ad insertion, and provided a relaxed way to control the interactive music TV application.

We also found that the hedonic quality (scale is from 0 to 10; scores less/more than 5 represent negative/positive attitude) for a music video television channel is significantly higher (two-tailed t-test, p=0.0002, n=21) when using an animated character for presenting dynamic video overlays (average 7.0/10) compared with the traditional transparent information box (average 4.4/10). Again, the experimental subjects were neutral towards the traditional information box, as it is a widely used and familiar presentation style for information related to music video clips (Table 5). Therefore, we argue that the animated character could be used to enhance the consumers’ entertainment experience with television.

Table 5 Mean hedonic quality scores for the animated character compared to the traditional overlay box
Full size table

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Chorianopoulos, K., Spinellis, D. User interface evaluation of interactive TV: a media studies perspective. Univ Access Inf Soc 5, 209–218 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-006-0032-1

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