Soon the world will have a glimpse of the kind of impact Android OS and Google Chrome web browser will have on television. Google TV is on its way to be in the spotlight. Google’s followers are keenly awaiting the arrival of this brilliant technology that will not only allow them to view every channel that usually runs on TV but will additionally let them watch websites, and this could all be controlled with the click of a phone.
In order to gear up for the new designing niche for the websites compatible to Google TV, one must be fully aware of the full-blown horizons and exploitable potential of the TV environment. Here are a few great tips to help designers deliver the best on the new web-TV platform:
Important aspects related to television viewing
- It is a social, living room device, often viewed in group (with family and friends)
- It is watched with higher attention and concentration. The users don’t like to get interrupted while watching it. It ideally should provide a stress-free viewing experience.
- The user sits at a distance and operates it with simple, easy commands from a remote control.
- The screen is wider, interface more viable, and colors with high vibrancy and contrast.
- Audio is an integral part of TV-viewing experience.
What matters to TV users?
Text communication: Remember, here too content is the king. But here, you have to be really quick in getting visitors to your content. Focus should be laid on creating a content that engages and interests the viewers instantly. Larger texts that allow easy visibility and readability (around 21pt on 720p and 28pt on 1080p) and smaller paragraphs (spanning no more than 90 words) can provide an optimal reading experience.
Simplicity or ease of use: TV is primarily meant to entertain the users and hence offers a platform that’s tremendously adaptive to the consumer’s needs and wants. Keep the concept and design very simple if you want success on this platform. For this, it is important that you keep only what’s really vital to the interface in terms of content, controls, and interactions and eliminate anything that’s nonessential. Make the navigation simple, keeping a single visible mode of navigation or one information hierarchy will make it easier and much convenient to use. Keep clear-cut primary actions, accessible in one click. Design the page in such a way that it limits vertical scrolling to the extent possible.
Screen, color, and flash: TV and computer screens are considerably different. You have to adapt to a wider screen display of TV. Make interface elements slightly larger. Designing for TV screen resolutions of 280x720 and 1920x1080, it is important that you keep in mind the dimensions for the elements of display. If an image is lesser size than the television screen dimensions, it will be scaled to fit to the screen, which would slightly affect the clarity. It is also critical to keep in mind the safe central display area that televisions have. If you want to ensure that all the interface elements are seen, keep flexible layouts with at least a 10 percent margin at each resolution. Higher contrast and saturation levels of TV screen require you to change a bit with the use of solid colors. Be conscious that bright white, red, and orange shades lead to distortion. It is imperative that you test your web pages for display quality with different display modes and color settings of TV. Google TV has a 720p and 1080p flash video playing capability. If you want a smooth video-watching experience for the users, make sure that your web page runs only one instance of media player at a time. If an ad with video streaming or a flash banner can’t be avoided, at least have it set in such a way that it unloads or stops while the primary video runs.
Audio: There is an important addition of “sound” for incorporation into a website. The need is to look for different ways on how music or sound can be linked with the matter of your interface. It’s important, however, that any audio streaming that’s a part of your website should be soothing, non-disruptive to its listeners, preferably set low by default. Also, as sound is a preference of high importance for television viewers, you should provide them an easy way to mute it.
Hope you find this valuable in the preparatory stage before you finally plunge into Google TV compatible website development!
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