Keywords

Tea Krogh & Jesper Hauerslev

Postgraduate students InDiMedia, BIDTV

Institute of Communication, Aalborg University

Denmark

Phone: + 45 - 23629156, + 45 - 22307558

E-mail: tkro00@hum.aau.dk, jeha99@hum.aau.dk

Keywords

Usage-modes, design, games on ITV, children,

Introduction

When we sit in front of the TV we are leaned back but when we sit in front of our computer we are leaned forward towards the screen (Engelund, 1999). Such has been the basic distinction between the two types of media ... but what happens when the two converge, as is the case with interactive digital TV and where does this leave the designers of the interactive TV-applications? The tendency has long been to focus on what has been learned from usability and HCI-research and then use these principles when designing for ITV [Curson and Nolan, 2002]. We opt to shift the focus to the usage-mode instead and let the designers ask themselves: “What mode should the viewer be in?” The idea for this new design-paradigm, if you will, is based on findings from our student-project, about children’s experiences with games for ITV. We will get back to the details about our project shortly but before we move on, we will take a quick look at how we use the two types of media that, as we see it, form up ITV.

How do we use the TV and the PC?

When we are watching TV we are leaned back, often in the company of friends or family. In this leaned back-state [Engelund, 1999] the information and entertainment is pushed towards us [Hyperdictionary, 2003]. This is old news and so is the fact that TV historically has been regarded as a social medium [Christensen & Rasmussen, 2003].

When we sit in front of our PC we become more active as we sit close to the screen, leaning forward and often sitting alone [Engelund, 1999]. In this leaned forward-state we have to pull

down the information and/or entertainment, thereby enabling us to custom-select what we want and when we want it. The affordance of the PC is the interactivity defined as the user’s ability to affect or change the expression of the media-content [Jensen, 1998]. Because of the interactive dimension, the use of PC has become both more individual and more of an intensive nature versus the usage of the TV, which is of a more extensive nature [Rasmussen, 2002].

A question of the application

This has changed with ITV where the interactive dimension of the PC is introduced to the TV. As a result ITV does not have one specific kind of usage-mode. It is more a question of the application itself. Some can be individual, some can be more sociable, some require the viewer to lean forward and be active while others let the viewer lean back and relax. In our case we have looked at games for ITV, more specifically a mock-up of a children’s edutainment-game. The purpose of our project was to test the before mentioned mock-up to evaluate the games’ general concept.

Rather than testing the concept’s usability we focused on the game-experience by letting representatives of the intended target group, children aged four to eight, play the game and telling us what they liked and disliked about the game and context. The children were divided into three groups depending on their age. Here we found that the usage-mode was dependent on the age of the viewers or in our case, the players.

Children and games on ITV

We found that the younger group preferred to be individual and play alone and their actions were very much paratelic in their approach to the game, which means that they play for the fun and experience more than for winning the game [Apter, 1991]. They were more focused on the audio-visual side of the game i.e. the graphics, the colours, the sound and the music. They had had a hard time sharing the interaction-devices and working together, which we concluded to be because of their age, which according to Piaget is the preoperational phase where children act egocentric, and thereby have a hard time working together [Berg, 1977].

While the younger group just played for the fun of it, the older group were much more telic oriented, which means that their primary focus was to win the game and get the best results [Apter, 1991]. The older group preferred to sit together and play in front of the TV, because they found it both cosy and funny. Another advantage was that they could help each other out, when trying to beat the game where one of the children would focus on what happened on the screen and then tell the other, who would concentrate on giving the necessary input. Two of these children stated that it is best to sit two and two together, because when more children play together, they are not necessarily patient enough to wait for their turn to interact. This in turn can lead to irritation and quarrelling between the children and thereby give the whole experience a negative atmosphere. The older children also mentioned that a keyboard is a good tool when two and two work together as this would allow them to share and play together at the same time but also form gameplay-strategies on how to win. This shows that the design of the control peripherals should be adapted to the usage-mode as well as the application in itself.

On a more general level, all the children from our project mentioned that they liked the idea of game-applications for digital TV and they also mentioned the size of the TV, as an advantage, compared to the computer screen, as the TV allowed for more children to sit together.

Conclusion

In our findings from our research-project, we get results pointing in the direction of

sociability-modes as well as individuality-modes. It is not a question about how the ITV-modes will be like because the only element that is stable is the fact that ITV has the interactivity as an embedded affordance. However, the extent of how the interactivity influences the usage modes depends on the service or application but also on the viewer himself. In the case of our student-project, where we were focussing on children, we found that the older children liked to be social. They played to win and they found that the keyboard was very useful when working together. The younger group, on the other hand did not necessarily have to win the game to have fun. To them, the single-player experience and exploration of the game and its possibilities were more enjoyable then playing with others or winning.

In conclusion, we want to state, that we believe that the new usage-mode for interactive TV is neither that known from TV or PC nor one brand new mode combining the two. It is rather several new different combined modes depending on the service or application as well as the viewer themselves. The game we tested had an interactive affordance, but that did not mean that the children could not be social while playing. The game actually opens up for both a social and individual usage-mode depending on the players age. This worked well in our case but other applications might benefit from being designed for either an individual use or a social use, depending on the genre of the application. Therefore designers must look at the modes that are typical for their certain genre of application, rather than usability or HCI-research principles.

References

Apter, Michael. 1991. Adult Play: A reversal theory approach, Swets & Zeitlinger

Bjerg, Jens & Vejleskov, Hans. 1977. Tænkning og udviklingsforløb – Jean Piagets teori

Christensen, Lars & Rasmussen, Tove. 2003. Fremtidens Interaktive Tv-Forbrugere – interim report on a focus group survey carried out in relation to a draft project for BID-TV, InDiMedia, Aalborg University

Curson, Ian and Nolan, Stuart. 2002. The betrayal

of interactive television, URL: http://www.oyster.com/insights/infull/page.asp?contentItemID=166

Engelund, Claus. 1999. TV ikke truet af

computeren, URL: http://www.cit.dk/download/citnyt9902.pdf Rasmussen, Tove A.. 2002. Multimedier i hjemmene, – interim report in relation to project for the research on Multimedia in the home, Aalborg University

HyperDictionary. 2003. URL: http://www.hyperdictionary.com/

Jensen, Jens F.. 1998. FISK 3: Multimedier, Hypermedier, Interaktive Medier, Aalborg Universitetsforlag.