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I'm not sure if this has been posted before but I really enjoyed this read so I wanted to share it with you all :lala:
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The Intel User Experience Group includes social science professionals who conduct in-depth research in the homes of people around the world. Unlike traditional focus groups or product testing, this research program is designed to understand how people in varied cultures touch technology in their daily lives.
The research findings help Intel human factors engineers and designers understand what people really want from new technologies and products, including new platforms designed to bring the Internet to TV. These findings are also used to help OEMs, ODMs and service providers gain deeper insights into customer needs and frame marketing strategies.
This article looks at what recent Intel research tells us about how Internet technology may change the TV experience – and some of the important questions that remain to be answered.
Keeping TV Simple
One profound question for the consumer electronics and TV industries is how to add Internet-based content and services, without altering what people everywhere say they love most about their TV experience. If that quality could be summed up in one word, it would be “simplicity.”
People want the power of the Internet on their TV – but not necessarily the Internet experience they have now. While consumers are open to the concept of new Internet services and more interactive control, they also tell Intel research teams that they want their TV experience to be uncomplicated and reliable – with no blue screens, driver software or other complications. One of the things consumers like most about TV is that they can just push a button and it works. They also like TV’s flexibility, the way it blends into their lives, and the fact that the TV experience can be shared with others.
The convergence of broadband and broadcast technologies will provide TV viewers with video program content from the Internet as well as traditional broadcast TV. The two-way Internet connection will also allow TV viewers to experience new IP services that represent the next step in the evolution of interactive TV viewing.
Interactivity began when viewers started using remote controls to surf channels and explore electronic program guides, then expanded through the use of VCRs and ultimately digital video recorders to record and time-shift favorite programs. This is a model to emulate when integrating new capabilities into our existing infrastructure.
TV Dominates Current Lifestyles
People love TV. This positive emotional attachment is extremely powerful, and it takes many forms. People describe their TV as a companion, advisor, time killer, necessity, educator, social life enabler, child-minder, boredom-buster, stress-fighter, lullaby, and low-maintenance friend, among other things. The emergence of new TV usages should complement these social values.
It is little wonder that even in the era of the PC and the cell phone, the TV is one of the first pieces of technology most consumers purchase. Each year 1.3 billion households (source: Euromonitor) around the world watch an estimated 2,464 hours of television (source: Nielsen). This equates to a total of 3.9 trillion hours of television viewing each year! Significantly, the total time spent watching TV is still 25-times greater than the 156 billion hours people spent using the Internet in 2007 (source: Comscore 2007).
Intel researchers find that many of the households they visit around the world contain multiple TVs. As consumers acquire a newer set, an existing TV is commonly handed down to other members of the family and moved to another room in the home. It is not uncommon to see a TV in most rooms in the home – in one case as many as 11 TVs in an 1,100 square foot residence, although not all of these sets were in use.
From these statistics it is easy to see that TV dominates the home space. In Kansas, residents told interviewers their living room is “useless” because it does not yet have a TV yet. In China and India, people will reconfigure their living spaces, including altering walls, to fit TV into their lives.
Downloading TV shows from the Internet will make it even easier for consumers to time-shift the viewing of recorded programs and place-shift their viewing experience by sharing TV programs with other connected devices, including mobile Internet devices.
Interestingly, Intel research findings show that other social patterns, such as water-cooler discussions with co-workers, will tend to impose limits on time-shifting. The more “time-sensitive” the content, the more likely it is that people will view their DVR recordings close to the air date of the program.
We have some interesting statistics to illustrate this point. Eight out of 10 households with DVRs watch recorded shows within three days of the recording date (source: OTX 04/08). An indication of the water-cooler effect is reflected by the fact that up to 70 percent of viewers who record American Idol on their DVRs watch the program on the same day (source: Nielsen). Time-shifting occurs most frequently with soaps, talk shows, and TV series, and least often with sports and news programs.
Special Content for Special TVs
With multiple TVs in the home, all content does not always to go to all TVs, and different TVs are often used to manage content, especially for distinct age groups. Many households contain one or more “single-purpose” TVs, including the special sets people watch while they are folding laundry or working out. Some sets are used for certain categories of content, such as a TV for use by children that does not include content for adults.
Intel researchers encountered a couple in the United Kingdom who practiced an interesting version of content management. They told interviewers how they managed TV content to protect the new white leather couch they had recently purchased for their living room. They arranged that the TV in that room would carry none of the cartoons or other programming their kids like to watch, and they even disconnected the VCR to take away the ability to watch movies. The kids were then “encouraged” to watch the TV in their play area.
TV is often considered to be an immersive medium, but this is not always the case. In many households around the world, it simply serves to provide a constant level of background noise, while family members go about their daily activities. TV can also serve as a distraction. In one Indian household the mother discovered she could braid her daughter’s hair more easily because the little girl tended to sit still in front of the TV.
The important point here is that many of the human needs and values served by TV have existed long before the development of the technology. Television simply provides new ways to address these same values. As the medium of TV changes with the adoption of new Internet-based TV usage models, television will continue to meet these human needs.
New Services Bring New Challenges
In the near future, traditional video and broadcast TV programming will begin to share screen space with a spectrum of personalized information, entertainment and social networking services, in addition to original content such as family videos and photos. The arrival of Internet-based programming and interactive IP-based services on TV will challenge the industry to find new ways to blend novel Internet-based usages into a seamless whole with traditional TV. Moreover, models of interaction must be transparent, with push-button ease-of-use.
We will also need to explore how these new usage models will impact the social context of TV. Some social networking services, such as dating sites, may not be popular in the living room, where several people may be watching the TV at any given time. Consumers must be able to shift between single-user and multi-user services, either by using several TVs or other connected CE devices in different rooms. Conversely, TVs with Internet connections may allow family members to share the same viewing experience in real-time through an on-screen instant messaging application, even though people may be located in separate places.
More Questions
Content producers will need to understand how new consumption patterns will influence production and distribution. The industry will need to adapt content for optimum viewing on a variety of TV and other connected platforms, including mobile Internet devices. We will also need a better understanding of how to provide personalized content when more than one person is using the TV.
New usage models will change the consumption of commercial content, and the industry needs to understand how. The Internet can, at least in theory, create orders of magnitude more viewing choices. Will this create further audience fragmentation and reduce the size of the viewing audience for any given program? Or will the worldwide reach of the Internet help to link programming with an expanded pool of interested viewers? What is the best way to get content on viewers’ radar screens? Will we use the two-way communications capabilities of the Internet to generate “Top-10” lists and post viewer-generated reviews? Will “smart search” applications enable viewers to discover preferred content? How do we know which new TV monetization and advertising models will be successful?
The Exploration Continues
Adding the Internet to TV will involve a continuous process of exploration. While we still have many unanswered questions, one thing is certain – the medium of television is on the threshold of profound changes. The question is how to integrate the best of the Internet, while preserving the best of a TV medium which continues to entrance, inform and inspire 1.3 billion households around the world.
Exploring the answers will require more careful research and interaction with TV viewers globally. Intel is actively engaged in this process, and the results will be used to help design new generations of CE platforms with the flexibility to power a changing TV experience.
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