User-Centered Interaction Design Patterns for Interactive Digital Television Applications

For new technologies such as interactive digital television often a lacking acceptance by end users can be observed, that partly is caused by applications that are difficult to use. To lessen this problem in future, guidance is needed for designing easy to use applications early in the life-cycle of the respective technology. Accordingly, in this book, guidance for designing the user interface of interactive digital television applications is developed.Firstly the context of use of interactive television applications, designers' need of guidance, and end users' needs are analysed, revealing a hierarchy of recurrent design problems for these applications,. Then proven solutions for these problems are identified empirically by systematic variation building, prototyping and usability testing. The results are documented in the form of a language of design patterns that includes comprehensive guidance for designing interactive television user interfaces. To take full advantage of the potential of design patterns, a new approach to them is presented that guides designers in exploring design alternatives and in evaluating their specific trade-offs. The approach presented is generic to let it be applied to other platforms and technologies too. Interactive evaluation of the pattern language presented for interactive television leads to design guidance that not only supports usability but also meets designers' needs. The developed pattern language for interactive television can be used for designing specific applications, for inspecting usability, for defining corporate style guides and for developing application templates to streamline the process of production.

Tibor Kunert, PhD, has worked in the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) for the last 10 years. At the Technical University of Ilmenau, Germany, he focussed his research work on HCI for interactive media like interactive television. He managed several research and development projects with public and private television broadcasters. He taught and supervised numerous master students on HCI and usability engineering methods and practices, for example for television, web applications and in-car information systems. Dr. Kunert is the author of 18 scientific papers and an invited conference speakerHe earned a PhD from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology at the Technical University of Ilmenau, Germany. Presently he is working as HCI expert at Siemens AG in several international projects.