Trends in the living room and beyond

Abstract

__________________________________________________________________________________________In this article we present the findings of two ethnographic studies embedded into two broader projects on interactive television in the home environment. Based on previous research on the home context and inspired by ongoing trends around interactive television, we explored basic concepts, such as the extended home, and new interaction techniques, in particular those related to future developments of the remote control. For the two studies we also developed two variations of the cultural probes method: creative probing and playful probing. This methodological approach proved to be appropriate for gathering in-depth data on participants' opinions, attitudes, and ideas in a way favorable to the participants. Overall, our results support existing research data on user media behavior and expectations and show trends in and beyond the living room, concerned with personalization, privacy, and security as well as communication. ACM Reference Format:Bernhaupt, R., Obrist, M., Weiss, A., Beck, E., and Tschelegi, M. 2008. Trends in the living room and beyond: results from ethnographic studies using creative and playful probing.

Nonlinear news production and consumption

“…For instance, Bernhaupt et al [2008] demonstrate through ethnographic studies the significance of shared experience in the context of families (which may be said to have certain social characteristics in common with tribes) and the related privacy issues thereof. The meta-study by Cesar et al [2008] similarly indicate social communications as one of the top priority items on the research agenda for interactive TV (even though they settle for the conventional conceptualization of asynchronous/synchronous versus colocated/distant, without looking further into the nature of the social structures and communications they call for).…”

Balancing the power of multimedia information retrieval and usability in designing interactive tv

“…Thus instead of a complex hierarchy of menus, it is important to provide a flat or shallow menu where a few remote control buttons can directly select frequently-used features without any menu navigation. For example, some ethnographic studies in a home setting reveal how people watch TV/DVR in their natural environment [3], [4], [36], [14], [18], [28] and [25]. In particular, one ethnographic study [14] using a naturalistic inquiry into 10 family homes found that the most frequently-used features included Pause, Skip, Rewind, Go to Electronic Programme Guide (EPG), and Go to Recorded List.…”

A proposal for remote DTV content presentation and control

“…From the studies [1,2,3] we can conclude that more capable remote controls will guide users to become more active in the iTV environment. It's reported in [3] that remote controllers are often considered as unusable.…”

“…It's reported in [3] that remote controllers are often considered as unusable. Furthermore, the results indicate that the rendering capabilities of the remote controller could be exploited more.…”