INTERACTION DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR INTERACTIVE ...

with a mouse than with a remote control, where users must often click through numerous
elements before reaching the desired link. As we have seen from the case study, the
primary usability concern for MSN TV 2 remains the difficulty of Web browsing,
including legibility issues and excessive scrolling, a convention that users are used to on
the computer but find annoying on television. According to Mark Gawlinski, the solution
for layout and readability problems with the Internet on television is to ask Web site
operators to design alternate, television-friendly versions of their sites (2003). Of course,
most companies today are not yet prepared to spend the time or money to go through this
effort.
As evidenced by Table 4.2, there appear to be fewer issues with the adoption of
iTV on the computer platform. This platform seems to be more conducive to successful
iTV adoption because users are already accustomed to the active, “lean forward” model
of interaction. Navigational concerns are negligible because the mouse affords relative
ease of movement. More importantly, while television must struggle with the adoption of
Web-like elements, the majority of Internet users are already accustomed to accessing
video content on the Web. Streaming video has been available on the Web for a long
time, and this model is not an alien one to most users. From the case study, it does appear
that the MCE 2005 is more user-friendly, and more readily adopted by consumers, than
the MSN TV 2 service.
4.7 CONCLUSIONS
In this chapter I have surveyed the existing standards for designing for the
television and for the Web, and explored some of the challenges arising from convergent
iTV design. In general, for iTV applications that are targeted at TV output, interaction
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