An Activity-Oriented Approach to Designing a User Interface for Digital Television

This chapter proposes an activity-oriented approach to digital television (DTV) user interface design. Our approach addresses DTV usefulness and usability issues and entails two phases. A user activity analysis is conducted in phase one, and activities and their social/cultural context are identified. DTV service functions are then conceived to support user activities and their context. DTV service usefulness can be ensured as a result. The user interface design considers both activity requirements and user requirements such as user’s related product experience, mental model, and preferences in phase two. Consequently, DTV usability is achieved. A DTV user interface concept is thus proposed. The interface design concept contains the following design features: activity-oriented user interface flow, remote control for universal access, shallow menu hierarchy, display management, adaptive information presentation, and context sensitive functions. Usability evaluation results indicate that the user interface is easy to use to all participants.