Media consumption research in the home: Lessons for interactive television

By Konstantinos Chorianopoulos

The majority of current interactive television designs are based on developers’ intuition, which is inappropriately inspired by an information technology education or experience. Thus, we have seen Electronic Program Guide (EPG) designs presented in grid structures and interaction that demands a constant and high attention from the user; or is it just a viewer? Television is the most ubiquitous and pervasive medium and people have developed certain expectations from their beloved TV sets. Therefore, I argue that interactive television designers should be benefited by studying previous research of how and why people watch television. In this article, I will outline the results of a few important studies --ethnographic, survey, longitudinal-- about the use of television and set-top boxes in the home.

When analyzing the impact of technological innovation on the media consumption habits, there is a common danger to avoid. It goes under the view that new technologies and media will completely substitute the old ones, rather than coexist, or at least enhance the old ones --for example that TV and radio would mean the end of newspapers, or the PC bring the paperless office.

Henry Jenkins (2001), the director of the Program in Comparative Media Studies at MIT, opposes to the popular view that interactive television will support only the needs of the channel surfers by making an analogy: ‘With the rise of printing, intensive reading was theoretically displaced by extensive reading: readers read more books and spent less time on each. But intensive reading never totally vanished.’ There are several studies that analyze carefully media consumption in the home and I have chosen a few of the most important ones to present below.

The role of ethnographic research in the home, regarding the use of the HMS (Home Media Station) class of devices, is instrumental. Studies of media use in the home indicate that there is an important technology-driven shift in the household’s media consumption patterns every decade or so. In the 80’s there was the PC (Vitalari et al. 1985), in the 90’s there was the Internet (Kraut et al. 1998).

It is likely, that during the first decade of the new millennium we will see the introduction of a new range of TV-centric appliances. The trend towards digital television transmission, local storage and manipulation of digital media content is already apparent and has been studied by ethnographers for the case of the digital set-top box (O'Brien et al. 1999).

In addition to ethnographic research, useful insights can be gained from studying previous research, regarding the use of traditional television. Lee and Lee (1995) have identified a number of fundamental uses and gratifications that people seek from television watching. For example, a wide diversity of attention to the television set --from background noise to full concentration-- contrasts ‘to the image of the highly interactive viewer intently engaged with the television set that is often summoned up in talking about new possibilities.’

It is worth noting that there are many more studies --mainly from the disciplines of media theory, psychology, sociology and advertising-- about the use of television in the home, which can be beneficial readings for interactive television designers. There are also additional categories of issues when designing for interactive television and HMS devices, like technology and content issues (Chorianopoulos and Spinellis 2003).

Table 1 summarizes the most important and relevant to the case of the HMS design factors that regard the user from a media consumption point of view. Human centered design of HMS applications should address and explicitly offer a resolution strategy for each one of the following trade-offs.

Design Factor	Description
Low Vs High Attention to Television	There are multiple levels of attention to television. One can watch television or leave it open as an electric light (Lee and Lee 1995)
Group Vs Individual Watching	Television should handle either group or solitary use and to provide means of adapting to different situations if both are desirable (O’Brien et al. 1999)
Planned Vs Impulse Program Selection	Viewers are usually loyal to a small number of programs, but now they are faced with an increased number of channels and ways of viewing their favorite programs (Lee and Lee 1995)
Concentration Vs Distribution of Functionality	Apart from decreased usability, concentration of functionality on a single device is incompatible with the distributed nature of home life (O’Brien et al. 1999)
Automation Vs Control of Activities	Automation is usually synonymous with relaxed use, but sometimes users prefer the hassle of control, in cases such as their privacy (O’Brien et al. 1999)

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