Designing Visual Complexity for Dual-screen Media

Abstract

So many people are now using handheld second screens whilst watching TV that application developers and broadcasters are designing companion applications-second screen content that accompanies a TV programme. The nature of such dual-screen use cases inherently causes attention to be split, somewhat unpredictably. Dual-screen complexity, a clear factor in this attention split, is largely unexplored by the literature and will have an unknown (and likely negative) impact on user experience (UX). Therefore, we use empirical techniques to investigate the objective and subjective effect of dual-screen visual complexity on attention distribution in a companion content scenario. Our sequence of studies culminates in the deployment of a companion application prototype that supports adjustment of complexity (by either content curator or viewer) to allow convergence on optimum experience. Our findings assist the effective design of dualscreen content, informing content providers how to manage dual second screen complexity for enhanced UX through a more blended, complementary dual-screen experience.

Enhancing Interaction with Dual-Screen Television Through Display Commonalities

“…A potential explanation, here, is that it is simply the amount of information on the web browser, and the cognitive effort associated with knowledge query which exacerbated this effect. Work by Neate et al [33] shows that the textual and graphical complexity of second screen content has a large effect on the mental effort required to engage with second screens.…”

“…Geerts et al [17], for example, suggest that by informing the user when a piece of content will become available, using a timer, that they may then adjust attention in a timely manner. Further, Neate et al [34] have looked at how to effectively shift a user's attention between screens in a crossdevice experience, and how one may vary visual complexity on a handheld device to compensate for the perceived complexity on the TV material [33]. Finally, Valuch et al [43], when considering the effect of cinematic cuts on a single screen, noted that viewers were able to better re-orient their attention more quickly if visual content is repeated from a pre-cut scene, suggesting that a similar approach may aid reorientation of visual attention in a cross-device experience.…”

“…In addition, to explore the effects of the commonalities on the participants when actively engaged in knowledge query we created a simplistic web browser, with 'back','forward', 'home', and 'refresh' shows the interactive text screen of the application, here participants could swipe up and explore more text; c), the animation scree. In this case the participants explored an interactive time-lapse of desertification; d) shows the quiz; here, as influenced by [33], participants were given true/false questions related to programme and the tablet material to motivate engagement with the materials on both screens. They were free to repeat the quiz as many times as possible, while also visiting other screens to fill in gaps in their knowledge.…”

“…We logged time-stamped events on the device and stored them for later analysis. For the COMPANION condition, interactions were logged within the app as a proxy for participant involvement with the second screen material (as in [33]). We logged when the participants moved to a new screen on the application, when they completed a quiz, and when they interacted with an animated widget.…”

“…Much of the work in the second screen scenario explores how we may measure [7,22], and intervene in [33,34] users' attention. However, this work does not consider the full capabilities of the connected living room for the second screen use case.…”