INTERACTION DESIGN PRINCIPLES FOR INTERACTIVE ...

medium. The current state of this emergent medium reflects the period of
experimentation that each new medium of expressive communication must go through:
In 1455, Gutenberg invented the printing press – but not the book as we know it.
Books printed before 1501 are called incunabula; the word is derived from the
Latin for swaddling clothes and is used to indicate that these books are the work
of a technology still in its infancy. It took fifty years of experimentation and more
to establish such conventions as legible typefaces and proof sheet corrections;
page number and paragraphing; and title pages, prefaces, and chapter divisions,
which together made the published book a coherent means of communication
(Murray, 1997).
Similarly, interactive television is still a medium in its infancy. It will take a
period of experimentation before we develop conventions familiar to us all. These new
conventions will develop to encode the affordances of the digital medium and will make
the ways in which we interact with our television programming more meaningful,
engaging, and compelling.
5.1.5 Interaction Design for ITV
Today, the study of interaction design is emerging from the foundations of
human-computer interaction (HCI) and industrial design – with a dedicated focus on
user-centered design. Murray specifies that the design process “must simultaneously take
into account how the human being is acting, how the computer is acting, and how the
actions of one are made readable to the other” (forthcoming). In other words, the actions
of the viewer and the machine are closely linked; designers must take into account that
components relevant to the interaction process such as content, navigation, and the user’s
understanding of his/her actions cannot exist independently of one another.
Designing effective interactive television experiences is a challenge for
interaction designers. In order to effectively approach the design challenges, I use a
combination of visual culture and usability methodologies. The visual culture aspect
addresses the experience of watching television as a cultural one, and is primarily
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