Usability evaluation of iDTV application in Flanders

The user-friendliness of new and existing applications is becoming a fixed part in the field of development of prototypes and applications. In this paper interactive Digital Television will be evaluated on its usability aspects. A thorough usability evaluation was carried out on the first iDTV application in Flanders. This paper focuses on the specific method used for usability testing on iDTV, more specifically the usability lab set up, evaluation method, relevant documents, test users characteristics, and so on. The results of 2 tests will be described in more detail, focussing on the specific observations found, the action that was taken afterwards and the effect on the user friendliness caused by this action. The 2 tests will also be compared with one another, since one test was carried out with a prototype on a computer and one test on television. An important finding was that evaluating with a prototype on the computer or on television revealed the same amount of usability hits and results of equal quality. Therefore an iDTV prototype can be evaluated even though it is not yet available on television