"Shelley Taylor & Associates: Mad couch disease hits viewers everywhere! "Stay tuned" for more information...
January 18, 2001
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London
Findings from landmark research on the current practices in UK and US interactive television (iTV) services will be published today by Shelley Taylor & Associates and sponsored by Smashed Atom. Stay Tuned, the first international study to evaluate iTV services, reveals the cure for Mad Couch Disease - an affliction debilitating iTV viewers everywhere. Symptoms include viewer vertigo, remote control separation anxiety, sleepless nights and perpetual channel surfing. Across the board, iTV services fail to provide consistent navigational aids, detectable customer care or visual display readable on TV screens - all critical to effective viewer interface.
"Stay Tuned" evaluates 7 US and 19 UK iTV services on more than 150 types of viewer interface evaluation criteria in order to reveal the current state of play in iTV. Services evaluated include broadcasters' enhanced TV content, including BBC Text and SceneOne; platform owners' own services, such as EPGs on OnDigital, Telewest, WebTV, AOLTV, MSN Interactive and NTL; and the first forays of retailers, such as Marks & Spencer, reaching customers through interactive TV. The second phase of the research, which will include French and Spanish iTV services, will be released in March 2001.
"It may be that the focus of all efforts to date has been on software and technology rather than on delivering a satisfying viewer experience," says Shelley Taylor, the author of Stay Tuned. "The future of iTV will rest in the hands of those willing to create innovative content specifically for this medium ? but even the most innovative new content will be useless without an effective viewer interface. If viewers can't find what they're looking for, they'll use the service once and turn it off, never to return. Create the right interface to great content, and they are likely to return again and again."
Jonathan Peachey, Chief Executive of Smashed Atom adds, "as a result of the disturbing findings in Stay Tuned, we will form a cross-industry group to draft and issue best practice guidance for interactive TV creative design. We believe this group will help the industry address the very real issues raised by the study. Digital TV platforms, broadcasters and retailers have invested fortunes in their interactive services. But these services clearly fail to recognise that the most important person is the consumer. Focusing on consumers means creating a service that suits the medium, and that provides clear navigation, has readable text and uses colours that don't induce headaches at 100 paces."
Some Key Highlights:
THE BEST AND WORST
Although none of the channels in the sample provide a role model for a great viewer experience, MSNBC (US) offers the closest approximation.
SKY's Simply Money (UK) is second best. The prize for worst in class falls to OnDigital's OnView channel, followed by Bloomberg on NTL (which to its credit offers good global navigation).
LOST IN SPACE
ITV content is dependent on available navigation tools. If viewers cannot find the information they want quickly and easily, the content becomes useless - whatever its quality.
* Only 2 UK channels provide more than two global navigation tools (elements present at all points of the viewing experience to help way finding).
WHO YOU GONNA CALL?
The frightening lack of contact and customer service information available on iTV services leaves many viewers looking like they've seen a ghost!
* Out of 5 US and UK channels devoted to t-commerce, only 1 channel offers any way to contact the company during the checkout process.
VIEWER VERTIGO
Viewer vertigo can be characterized by a general feeling of disorientation and nausea derived from straining to view screens marred by poor or cluttered visual display.
* UK services are easier on the eyes than their US counterparts when it comes to arranging on-screen content; appropriately borrowing more from broadcast visual design than the web.
Shelley Taylor & Associates is a management consulting and business publishing firm with offices in Silicon Valley and London. Smashed Atom is a leading full service TV consultancy that wishes to back-up its commitment to delivering high quality, usable interactive TV by investing in primary research.
The research was launched at a breakfast briefing in London on January 17th. The full study, which includes a company-by-company analysis and specific examples of best and worst practices, is available for purchase from the London office (+44 (0)20 7243 3428), cultivators@infofarm.com or US office (001 650 473 6514). The Executive Summary is available to journalists upon request. Interviews with Shelley Taylor can be scheduled by calling the UK office of Shelley Taylor & Associates (tel:44(0)20 7243 3438) or Shelley's UK mobile (44(0)468 455 671).
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