A Usability Study On Electronic Programme Guide Of Digital Television

As the digitalization age of global broadcast TV comes, China is greatly promoting the spread and application of digital TV. Because of the interactive characteristic, Digitqal TV (DTV) is endowed with many new functions, such as Electronic Programme Guide (EPG), Video-On-Demand, etc, and the same time the interactive characteristic changes the way of TV watching which from the traditional passive "playing-and-watching" to active participating. Whether user can accept digital TV or not depends not only on the amount of digital TV and Set-Top-Box, but to a great extent, depends on the usability experience when users use digital TV, that is, how users feel about the interaction process when enjoying digital TV services. So it is necessary to study the usability of DTV interactive service. At this instance the author conducts an explorative study on Electronic Programme Guide which is an important interactive application of DTV.Based on large literature search, the author develops our usability study on China DTV interactive service using User Centered Design (UCD) method. First, the author investigates the use situation on users who has already experienced DTV by questionnaire method. The study finds out the present situation of DTV and the main difficulties that user meets during the usage. Based on that, Electronic Programme Guide (EPG) is settled as the study object. Second, the author carries out the usability evaluation on EPG which includes two stages. The first stage uses heuristic evaluation method. From the usability experts' view, the author finds out the existing usability problems of the EPG and gets the improved suggestions. The second stage uses field usability testing method. From the real users' view, the author also finds out the existing usability problems of the EPG which all validate and supplement the first stage results. Moreover, the study acquires the users' expectations on new functions and the suggestions on how to improve the satisfaction. Third, the author conducts the improvement study on EPG, including interactive flow re-design, functions integration and perfection, user interface consistency adjusting, EPG information expansion, etc. And then the author designs the prototype and makes high fidelity prototype. Last, through usability testing and experts evaluation on prototype, the author validates the degree of usability improvement.The research results indicate the feasibility of usability and UCD method in EPG usability study. The methods used in the study and the improvements the study makes can effectively applied to the usability study and development of every EPG in China, therefore, the paper has great significance in improving EPG usability, enhancing user experience, making DTV a universal popular mass media.