
Bringing The Ten Foot User Interface To The Web - jasonlbaptiste
http://jasonlbaptiste.com/featured-articles/bringing-the-ten-foot-user-interface-to-the-web/
======
pkaler
Cart before the horse. You want to bring the web to the ten foot user
experience NOT the other way around.

The iPhone App model is successful because native applications make HTTP
requests and custom render the results rather than just rendering HTML.

You need native applications in the living room because you need performance.
You are competing with the XBox 360 and Sony PS3. An HTML web browser will not
cut it.

Next up is input. Rendering HTML that works with mouse/keyboard, and
multitouch, and remote/gamepad in the living room seems like it will have way
too many compromises. Wordpress/WPTouch works because it focuses mainly on
websites with content and not Apps in general.

Start backwards. There is a person sitting on a couch ten feet away from a
display. His/her significant other is on the couch, too. What is this person
holding in their hands? How is this input device communicating with the
display? How does this display send network requests to a server?

------
synnik
Kinda missing the point, IMO - the UI differences are nowhere near as
important as the cultural difference.

1 foot = single active user. 10 feet = passive user, often multiple passive
users.

THAT difference is a much bigger concept to work on than the UI...

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
I FULLY agree that is a huge part of the ten foot experience. I believe the tv
screen is a social screen enjoyed by multiple users at one time. I'm talking
more about UI, which is how the interface is presented ie- a 3 foot ui on a 50
inch screen would look horrible whether it was one person or five people. So
would it be correct to say what i'm talking about is UI and what youre talking
about is UX -Two very important and inter-related, but different things?

------
jkincaid
At Google I/O they held a press conference immediately following the Google TV
announcement where I asked about bringing the 10 foot experience to the web.
One of the project's lead PMs answered (as did Adobe's CEO, to a limited
extent). See the video in this post: [http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/24/google-
tv-and-optimizing-th...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/24/google-tv-and-
optimizing-the-web-for-the-10-foot-experience/)

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
Great post Jason. I updated mine to add some commentary / include the
video+your post. I'm sure Adobe will make tools for this, but I'm hoping
something comes out way sooner.

~~~
pixelbath
It becomes increasingly difficult to follow the narrative when the underlying
text changes before I've even responded to it.

------
mikeryan
Dear god I hate it when someone says you can "optimize" a site for TV or in
this case "10footify",

I've worked in the TV UI space for a long time and have developed several HTML
based apps for TV. Its a completely different experience navigating with a
remote as opposed to a mouse. Something as simple as a select list can be a
complete bear to navigate via a cloverleaf remote.

Heck even something as simple as scrolling a page with a remote is a complete
nightmare.

As long as we are navigating with a cloverleaf (w/o something like a wiimote
pointer) then web pages are going to work _extremely_ poorly on the TV. On
that front I have yet to find wiimote or something like an iphone mouse that
performs well on a TV. As much as a pointing device "works" on the Wii, you
lose a whole magnitude of pointing precision with it and I've never seen
anything else that's much better.

This is completely outside of the whole content model for TV apps is such as a
passive one. Reading some web content on TV is nice, but we will not be
ingesting normal web content via our TV on a regular basis, we'll do what we
do now with the TV on and everyone around it working on their own laptop, iPad
or Smart phone.

------
pixelbath
From a UI standpoint, you pretty much pick an aspect ratio, and go to it.
Sure, it'd be nice if all UI elements were homogenous across all TV apps, but
it's not going to happen because there's no inherent standardization in the
"platform."

What works for a 3-foot interface may also work for a 10-foot interface. On a
phone screen, it's all about clickable areas accessible via fingertip. On a
50-inch screen using a Wiimote-like device, it's all about clickable areas
accessible via pointer. With a directional remote, it's all about the UI
element highlighting. Maybe someone is using a touchscreen remote, which then
creates a hybrid 3-foot/10-foot UI.

I'm not sure I understand what you're advocating, other than standardized user
interactions. Does this framework apply to all websites, effectively bringing
"the web to TV," or does this only apply to "apps?" (similar to iPhone/iPad
apps)

"If my tv tells me I've won two free iPod nanos, it will get thrown out the
window." This is some serious pie-in-the-sky thinking. If you're designing
these wonderful apps with this wonderful ad structure, who's going to run ads
on a platform that lets users just toss the ads out easily?

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
Take a look at jqtouch. It gets everything setup for the touch based web. The
layout size, touch interactions,etc. Do what jqtouch is doing for the mobile
web, but for the tv. Hope this clarifies things.

Pixel and aspect ratio is actually fairly doable. I'd say 16:9 is commonplace
enough, along with 1080p resolution (1920x1080). Sure there are still 720p
TVs, but I think if were building for the future it's a good bet to say 1080
is the way to go.

Re:ads. It certainly is pie in the sky thinking, but it's worth aiming for.
Though I don't enjoy commercials, I don't feel they are as horrendous as
horrible web ads.

~~~
pixelbath
JQTouch looks nice, but none of the animation demos worked for me, and the
back and forward browser navigation broke completely.

Regarding the actual UI, is everything supposed to be full-width? Seems like
an easy way to solve the aspect ratio problem, but introduces either: 1.
scrolling like a mofo, or 2. lots and lots of small screens. Is this a problem
that a style guide would be attempting to solve?

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
The animations need some work. Here's a cool one, that I'm working on
modifying. <http://jasonlbaptiste.com/jqtouch.html> I wanted to add a swipe to
go to the next article function to my blog.

Check out some Boxee apps to see how I feel things should look like.

------
nhnifong
Television is already the perfect UI for passive users. I would simply avoid
that whole market and culture and pretend it doesn't exist while we starve it
of creativity. Eventually active consumers will outnumber passive ones (or
active behavior outpace passive behavior, minor difference)

Assuming your not designing for television watchers, then the simple matter of
the distance from the screen does become an intense source of changes in UI
design.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
Perfect experience, which is different than UI. I'm focused more on UI in this
post. The experience end is just as fascinating. A lot of people ripped on
nowmov when they launched, but I think they could be one of YCs biggest
successes. They're trying to bring that instant on and easily passive
experience to web video. That's desperately needed.

