INTERACTION DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR INTERACTIVE ...

CHAPTER 5
PRINCIPLES OF INTERACTION DESIGN FOR ITV:
SYNTHESIZING THE INVESTIGATION
5.1 INTRODUCTION
Having completed a survey of the interactive television arena, including
platforms, programming for persistent television genres, and some existing design
guidelines and challenges, we now turn to the formulation of interaction design principles
for iTV. The survey conducted thus far has already touched upon many relevant
interaction design issues; I will be drawing upon them in part to inform the principles
presented in this chapter.
5.1.1 Inventing the Medium
The study of interaction design for converging digital media is tackling new
ground. Janet Murray notes in Inventing the Medium: A Principled Approach to
Interactive Design that “digital designers may come from traditions that approach design
as a remaking of familiar artifacts; but digital design is often more like invention than
adaptation. Digital design is often a process of inventing the equivalent of the world’s
first toaster, of looking at bread and fire and being the first to imagine the possibilities of
toast” (forthcoming). Consumers are no longer limited to the experience of watching
analog television from the sofa or surfing Web sites in front of a computer; successful
iTV design and programming will transform and “remediate” the very ways we watch
television and will generate new possibilities of interaction and community building
between networks and worldwide audiences (Bolter & Grusin, 1999).
As we have seen, current guidelines that inform design in this new arena are
specific to analog television and Web applications. The expressive digital medium,
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