Is interactivity the most important element of interactive television content design?

By Konstantinos Chorianopoulos

The introduction of interactive television has been promoted and attributed to the interactive content of the new medium. It often goes without much thought, that if something is interactive then it is also better and it will be preferable. However, the passive uses of the broadcasting and entertainment media are either desirable, or have an implicit interactive dimension that takes place outside the medium itself. An example of the latter is the social interaction that takes place in groups of TV viewers, or the virtual-competition with the televised players of quiz programs. In addition to interactivity there are several other and equally important factors to be considered when designing content for interactive television.

User control, choice and interactivity are considered to be the most important benefits of interactive television products. In addition to implicit interactivity with televised programs and fellow viewers, interactive television users can get additional program or product information, make orders, and communicate with other users. Yet, besides speculation, there is no evidence that interactivity can actually improve television experience. Regarding the use of interactivity in televised movies, Vorderer et al. (2001) found that the use of alternate story endings reduced the entertainment dimensions of the watching experience for certain classes of users.

Television content design is usually concerned primarily with depicting and developing characters, which is usually done through a story and most frequently over the course of several episodes. Furthermore, Jacob Nielsen highlights the differences between the personal computer and the television on a number of important characteristics, like user posture, input devices, etc. On the other hand, Lekakos et al. (2001) found that PC user interface widgets such as menus, pages and navigation look irrelevant on a TV screen, even when used by experienced computer users. Computer-generated animated characters for television user interfaces represent the best of the two worlds and have been exploited with positive user evaluations in recent research works (Diederiks 2003, Chorianopoulos 2003).

Close to and immediately after interactivity, personalization is another popular and sought after goal for interactive television application designers and developers. Originally, personalization was meant to reduce information overload for work-related tasks and it has been an important driver for PC and Internet applications. The use of personalization in the interactive television domain was based on the growth of cable and satellite channels and on the availability of hard-disk equipped set-top boxes for storing even larger number of programs. Yet, previous research with audiences has indicated that television provides shared experiences that people can talk about, which contrasts with the effort for personalization (Lee and Lee 1995).

Past studies have revealed that even heavy computer users tend to leave the television open during the day (GVU), while working on the PC and surfing the Internet. Broadcasted news stories and events are crosschecked and enhanced with information that is retrieved from diverse online resources. A complementary study has found that increased use of the Web for informational needs is strongly associated with reduced use of television. Unless television is enhanced with more information, it is predicted that it may lose its dominant position as an information source for the majority of people. Therefore, informational elements should be used to augment entertainment content (Livaditi et al. 2003) of interactive television.

On the basis of the above literature, the virtual channel is a conceptual model for designing appropriate interactive television content. You can also read a paper about the virtual channel model and see a few screenshots of applications developed by employing the virtual channel model.

The table bellow summarizes the factors that affect the design of interactive television content from the perspective of media content creation

Design Factor	Description
Infotainment	Both information and entertainment should be offered in a relaxed way (Livaditi et al. 2003)
Interactivity	Current television patterns of use are passive, but interactivity can improve certain television experiences (Vorderer 2001; Lee and Lee 1995)
Content Patterns	Television viewers are accustomed to stories and characters in contrast to computer users who prefer objects and actions (Nielsen 1997; Lekakos et al. 2001)
Personalization	Television provides shared experiences that people can talk about, which contrasts with the effort for personalization (Lee and Lee 1995)

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