Is Television UX a mishap ?
We all transitioned from using CRT based television sets to using LCD, LED, OLED, QLED tv sets. While there has been tremendous growth in simplifying the size of the TV’s , there has also been a large scale growth in the way we interact and operate the tv sets. it’s nothing but the software or the underlying os in the TV sets.
With the advent of the os for the tv sets the way how we interact with the tv’s has changed a lot. Initially we used to find it very difficult to type text on screen using the tv remote and later on additional features such as voice based interaction, using our mobile phones as remotes etc have become the new normal. Nobody saw the major 2 problems coming up in the future at that time
> Ads - at the same time the traditional television operators business has started declining at a rapid pace due to the os boom, but on the flip side the tv manufacturer’s found new ways to increase their revenue by displaying ads on their devices - which can be called as the 1998 google moment, when it started displaying ads in the search engine results. Obviously apps store would be their common place to push the ads they would like the consumers to see. While it truly makes sense in tv manufacturer’s point of view, it is a frustrating thing on the consumer’s side. If consumer A is searching for an app Y, they should be able to find it easily & simply on the app store and they shouldn’t be forced to scroll through all the sponsored yy, yyy, yyyy etc apps and all. While the current mobile os companies also do the same it is much more a broader & bigger issue since for example android aosp is forked by many phone companies the ux will be definitely unique for each and every company. At the end the ux across android devices, from different companies, will be different and the experience would be similar to how we do shopping across the local markets - each shop set up with it’s own aesthetics.
> Device OS UX vs TV Stick OS UX - While the above mentioned ads push is a bigger problem, but it just became a part of much more bigger problem. Yes, the ux became quite critical over the years. As the number of device manufacturers grew across the globe, new eco systems have also risen - initially apple & google were the big eco systems and now one plus, Samsung etc also. Slowly the ux across the eco system’s became a usp for tv manufacturers.
One more bigger issue is the hardware configuration done by the tv manufacturers. How on earth do they put a 512 MB storage set up inside a latest smart tv ? I faced this situation 3 yrs ago and even now the situation is same. Recently purchased a new smart tv and its internal storage is ~1.5 GB. Idk if the product teams of the tv companies really understand the tech and how the big the app sizes will grow slowly over the time and the number of apps installed by the users on the tv sets.
The solution to this problem, for the time being, is the tv sticks manufactured by google, amazon, apple, mi etc. Out of them google & apple are the only one’s which stuck to the best ux design - simple, clean & smooth. But even here also except apple tv stick all other companies tv sticks are a dud in terms of hardware config. After using chromecast & apple tv sticks from the past 2 yrs I can clearly say that tv manufacturers should start selling tv sets without any inbuilt os or smart os, which they boast.
tv sets, and may be walls in our homes, are the next big things waiting to be revolutionized with new AI features so having the best, clean & simple ux would make consumer’s lives device’s usage much better. At the moment tv set’s os ux is definitely in a bad state but definitely hoping that it will improve over the time.