INTERACTION DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR INTERACTIVE ...

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen offers a very thorough review of WebTV from a
usability standpoint (1997). Although Microsoft has since upgraded to MSN TV 2, many
of the problems from Nielsen’s 1997 analysis persist. I summarize here a few of the key
design issues that Nielsen points out:
Remote control: The need for a simple remote control ultimately dooms WebTV
as a highly usable Web experience. No matter how well designed, it is simply too
awkward to use cursor keys to move around the screen instead of using a mouse
or other direct pointing device.
Wireless keyboard: Supposed to be an optional device, but the system is almost
useless without it. There is an on-screen keyboard that can be operated by the
remote control, but it is extremely painful to tap out even short URLs by moving
cursor keys up-right-left-down.
Screen size: WebTV has a small screen that shows a very limited amount of
information compared with a traditional computer screen. This is particularly true
given the need for WebTV to use large fonts because of the poor display quality
of NTSC televisions and the typical viewing distance between the TV set and the
user’s couch. In addition, WebTV’s small screen size creates problems with
excessive scrolling, users getting lost within a single page, and difficulties
scrolling back to the top of the page.
Ultimately, however, Nielsen concludes that “WebTV achieves a very high level
of usability given its design constraints. Unfortunately, the constraints are so severe that
even this great design ultimately fails to provide an optimal Web user experience”
(1997).
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