Talking about the TV interface and operation mode

With the internet and life increasingly inseparable, networking equipment from the original computer, the switch to the phone. Just as everyone's life is inseparable from the mobile phone, the network is waiting to enter the most common contact with the third screen-TV.

There have been many manufacturers in the intelligent television, the early IPTV, China Telecom MoD, a TV network lotto is this kind of, now OTT (Over-the-top)-box, well-known Apple TV, Google TV and everyone may be unfamiliar Roku, Boxee, through the rich digital content of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon video and so on, achieves the new viewing experience.

Because the television has the big size, the long-distance viewing characteristic, therefore in the interface design development, and the computer handset browsing uses the experience to have the very big difference. In addition to the external limitations of the controller, when using the TV, we do not have keyboard mouse, to click any button, enter any text, can only rely on the single button of the remote control, which we can best use the key, is up/down/left/right/confirm, how to use this single interactive device, To do the use of users will not "crazy" products, we need to study the subject of good.

Re-design of virtual keyboard

It is believed that many people may have used some of the set-top boxes that run Android, and some have called it a living room computer product. When you open the browser to enter the URL, jumped out of the virtual keyboard, you use the remote control a word slowly input, that impatience almost want to give up feeling, should be a lot of people have experience. In case you accidentally input errors all over again, leaving the impression that Smart TV is hard to use.

Use the remote control to enter any digital text on the TV, it was a very difficult thing, the biggest problem is the Android built-in Qwerty virtual keyboard, originally designed on mobile phones and tablets, with the same physical keyboard configuration, so that users rely on the computer is the experience to quickly find the key position, Achieve the input purpose. But instead of a remote that only has the arrow keys plus the confirmation key, with a Qwerty virtual keyboard, most of the time is wasted on the mobile button, and the English keyboard configuration is to make each finger click the same number of times, so enter a word, need to move around the button, the natural user experience is poor.

In the design of the virtual keyboard, Opera TV uses the traditional mobile phone's English input interface, use the remote control on the 0 ~ 9 number keys to complete the input, the other is there will be a ~z, 0 ~ 9 keys rearranged into 6 times 6 by the virtual keyboard. Both of these methods can effectively reduce the number of times the user presses the remote control.

Navigation interface

Good navigation mode, is to allow users to easily find what they want, in the television interface, the proposed design into a rectangular button, and has a clear focus on the effect, so that users clearly understand the position of the current operation. When we design a interactive interface for reading on TV, we find that there are only a limited number of pictures on TV, and only about 10 of the data can be displayed on one page. In the picture of the case, Opera TV choose to focus on the center, when pressed left and right button, the screen into a horizontal scrolling way to get more display screen.

The Apple TV uses a vertical scrolling method, deliberately let the lowest button is cut off the bottom of the screen, so that users know that there is content below, when moving to the bottom button, there will be a scrolling effect like the next, so that users are not easy to use in the process of getting lost.

There is also a TV App-youtube TV that utilizes both vertical and horizontal scrolling. This is a completely web-developed application, as long as the HTTPS://WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/TV using the browser with the keyboard's arrow keys to operate. When moving up and down will use the way up and down scroll to change the navigation menu, moving around the use of horizontal scrolling to select the movie link, this mode of operation is very intuitive, unfortunately, the display content can only use a single line of display, can display a limited amount of data

There are many possibilities for the future operation of Smart TV, which has recently launched a Kinect-like smart TV, using a remote-like mouse control, or a recently released fan TV that brings familiar touches to television, The future of the interactive way with television will become what foreign son, let us continue to observe.