Thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Sciences at Polytechnic School, University of São Paulo.
Advisor: Prof. Dr. Marcelo Knörich Zuffo
Download
Thesis (complete text, in portuguese)
http://formato.com.br/projetos/mestrado_gil_barros/Mestrado_Gil_Barros.pdf
(PDF, 9,5MB)
Presentation (slides, in portuguese)
http://formato.com.br/projetos/mestrado_gil_barros/Mestrado_Gil_Barros-aula.pdf
(PDF, 1,9MB)
Abstract
In the past few years there has been an intense debate about the transition from analog to digital Television, with the acquisition of many innovations. Of particular interest to this study is the interactivity, which opens a new modality for this medium, the interactive TV.
The challenges posed by research and development in interactive TV are ample and not fully investigated. In particular, the question of user interface consistency presents itself as a relevant topic, which is little explored in the literature.
This work investigates the question of user interface consistency for interactive TV, taking into account it’s theoretical and implementation implications. The question of consistency and its approaches was reviewed in the literature of Human-Computer Interfaces. Considering that consistency is a characteristic relative to a model, we tried to identify models of interactive TV interfaces, which are examples of best practices to be followed.
The methodology proposed and utilized has five steps: user modeling, task analysis, interface guidelines, platform comparative analysis and interface coordination. The first three steps generate recommendations while the comparative analysis generates references. Using these two products the interface coordination tries to determine examples of interfaces, which can become models, this step also verifies the internal consistency of the proposed model and elaborates alternatives if the found solutions are not satisfactory.
Using this methodology a large experimental evaluation was performed. Of special interest is the proposition of four user models, a contextual task analysis of two of the user models as well as an extensive comparative analysis between seven TV platforms.
The result of this work is the proposition of an integrated interface, which focuses on three aspects: the navigation map, the minimum remote and a navigation model. The navigation map is the taxonomy of the system. The minimum remote is a group of keys that should be universally available to the user. The navigation model presents a consistent and extensible mechanism for navigation in interactive TV applications.