Screen Interface for a Television
Premise
In a quest to drive the emerging Indian market, technology providers are providing more and more features into their products. This is especially evident in the domain of home entertainment products with new product models releasing every few months. However, many Indian consumers (especially women) feel overloaded by the complexity of these products, in terms of the way they interact with the product.
Objective
In a lot of Indian households, the Television is the most prominent entertainment product.
Television is the main entertainment product
Users and their interactions with home entertainment products
The project looked at establishing new ways of interacting with home entertainment products (in specific – the Television) and structuring information in products themselves ; thus enabling a hassle free and intuitive experience for the Indian User. In all, I tried to incorporate the brand promise of Philips – ‘sense and simplicity’ into my designs.
Process
The project involved a highly user-centric design process; most of the time was spent on user research and analysis. Research started with simple hypotheses backed up by desk research. Desk research aided in studying the current trends and their implications on my project. Following that, Multiple rounds of interviews were conducted to understand the users’ concept and opinion of technology.
Breakdown of Research and Analysis in the project
Parameters for User Interviews
A plot of user responses with respect to product parameters
Typical User Responses During Interviews
Also, a novel technique called ‘cultural probes’ was used to make the research process more activity based. This induced a sense of excitement in the process , and increased user participation.
The Cultural Probe Kit : A set of cards with questions and activities related to ‘simplicity’.
The insights and findings from the research and analysis phase determined a list of expectations that a user has from a home entertainment product.
These user needs were incorporated in interactions between the on screen display of a home entertainment system and its controlling devices. A large number of concepts were generated as to how information could be organized in an efficient and simple manner, on both the display and control.
Explorations were then combined and refined into final design concepts. Patterns of interactions between the user, the remote and the on-screen display were developed next. These concepts were quickly prototyped and tested with some prospective users. Important feedback was then incorporated into the final design.
Deliverables
1. Information Architecture
2. Interaction flows
