The PVRBlog Interview: Ten Questions with TiVo's Director of User Experience, Margret Schmidt

This past summer, I was building some new website interfaces (it's part of my day job) and thinking about TiVo's combination of power and simplicity in their interface and I got to thinking about all the things I wished I could ask someone about the TiVo UI but was afraid to ask. Then I realized I could track down someone at TiVo HQ and corner them for an interview. Thanks to a few designer friends in the Bay Area, I ended up speaking directly to the top, the head honcho of all that is TiVo User Experience, Margret Schmidt.

Margret was kind enough to answer ten questions about how TiVo's UI was originally developed, how new features are added, and how the sound UI came to be, among others. I'm grateful for TiVo and Margret taking the time to do this, so without further adieu, here's the interview:

---

Matt Haughey: TiVo is a revolutionary product and aside from the basic recording features, the interface is often seen as a key killer feature among both typical users and the design-savvy. I'm constantly hearing it referenced as the hallmark of useful design that masks powerful features. Was an easy-to-use interface a key design goal from the beginning of TiVo's development? (considering TiVo was developed in 1997-8 that was incredibly forward thinking at the time).

Margret Schmidt: In 1998 the "design mantras" for TiVo were:

• It's entertainment, stupid.
• It's TV, stupid.
• It's video, damnit.
• Everything is smooth and gentle.
• No modality or deep hierarchy.
• Respect the viewer's privacy.
• It's a robust appliance, like a TV.

From the very beginning ease-of-use was a goal of the team.  They were inspired by appliances and interfaces that "just work" and don't require reading manuals or learning the controls.  Donald Norman's "The Design of Everyday Things" was required reading.  They spent a lot of time talking to "TV people" about what made for good broadcast television design.

As TiVo has evolved, we've revised our design mantras, but with many of the same themes:

The TiVo box makes TV better...

• It is reliable.
• It puts me in control.
• It's easy to use.
• It's smart and helpful.
• It's responsive.
• It's all about entertainment.

I can't imagine life without it.

MH: I'm guessing UI feature development is a relatively long process, involving much internal debate and testing. Can you take us through the process? As a feature goes from idea to deployed to users, about how long does it take and what steps does the UI team take along the way?

MS: The business case for product features and functionality originates in Product Management.  The UI Designer works closely with the Product Manager and Technical Lead to refine the requirements.

Depending on the nature of the feature we may do some early user needs research to understand how users think about a concept, and what they might be looking for in a feature.   From the requirements and the research findings the Designer creates an initial design concept which is reviewed first with the User Experience team, and then with the stakeholders for the project. 

The design concept is a walkthrough of the most frequent tasks we expect users to undertake.  If the stakeholders believe the concept meets the requirements, we begin usability testing of the design.  TiVo has an on-site lab and a strong research team.  Typically we will create a fully functional prototype that we can display on a TV and control with a TiVo remote -- it feels just like the real thing!  Based on the findings, we iterate on the design.  (Some times *many* iterations!)

The Designer then creates a written specification for engineering that details every screen, error condition, edge case, and final text. Engineering starts building it, and we can begin using the feature at home, and then deploying it to Alpha and Beta testers.

The Researcher designs the tasks and surveys for the testers to complete in order to get further user feedback.  Some tasks can't be easily modeled in the lab and need to be evaluated when the user can live with the product.  For instance, dual tuner channel surfing behavior didn't lend itself easily to lab-based testing.  We received much better feedback when users could live with the product and accurately report how they used it and not how they *thought* they would use it.

We continue to make tweaks to the user experience throughout the development cycle, always conscious about our need to stay on schedule. The Design and Research leads are on the project from the initial investigation until the moment it ships.  The length of the process varies with the complexity of the release.

Anyone can apply to participate in our beta or usability programs.

MH: When you've got a breakthrough product like TiVo, you're constantly innovating in a space that doesn't have a ton of established competition and I bet user research can be tough. How do you ensure that you're developing something that is usable, desirable, etc. when it's never existed before?  Do you have to build a lot of proof-of-concept prototypes and test with users to see if people want it?

MS: Innovation is a by product of a talented team.  We regularly brainstorm, collect, and categorize new product ideas.  We have a cross functional approach to refining the ideas into product features.  We have one person dedicated to creating prototypes so we can iterate quickly.

It can be difficult to test an innovative product because people are often not good at predicting their own future behavior.  We overcome this by using a variety of research methods including in home studies, usability studies, in depth interviews, card sorts, surveys, field experiments, data analysis of existing behaviors to a name a few.  By using different methods we are able to triangulate and get a sense of future use in the development process.

MH: Does market research play a big role into user experience? Do you check out what publications, forums, and sites are saying they wished TiVo did, then use that to develop new features, or are feature ideas more home-grown?

MS: We keep a catalog of good ideas called "RFEs" (requests for enhancement).  These RFEs can come from anywhere -- from employees, Beta testers, Customer Support, the TiVo Community forum.  We categorize the RFEs by feature, like Season Pass(TM) recording or WishList(TM) search.

When a UI Designer is tasked with changes to a particular feature he reviews all of the related RFEs to see which ones are appropriate to incorporate into the design.  In addition, the User Experience team keeps a "Hit List" of the features or improvements we would most like to see addressed in the product.  We routinely review this list with the Product Management team to get the business justification for spending engineering effort on specific features or improvements.

MH: As I've watched TiVo over the years, I've seen it morph from a company that challenged Hollywood to one that was eventually embraced it. Have there ever been problems weighing what users are asking for, and what TV studios are comfortable with? I would imagine the upcoming TiVoToGo features would be a good example.

MS: It is actually pretty easy to balance the needs of the two groups, because in general they have the same goals.  Users want to watch quality programming when, where, and how they want to.  Studios want their programming enjoyed by the masses.  TiVo simply empowers users to control their TV consumption within the guidelines of fair use.  We have strong security system called TiVo Guard(TM) that protects the interests of the studios.  We don't support the inappropriate distribution of copyrighted content, and our users aren't asking for it.

MH: Given the large current userbase of TiVo and their comfort with the interface, I see parallels with eBay in terms of a rabid fanbase that has historical problems dealing with major UI changes. Has stability in the UI ever been a problem when developing new features?

MS: We are very careful not to change the UI just for change's sake.  For example, three years ago, when we were shipping our 2.5 release we were thinking of changing the behavior of the ADVANCE button on the remote. Instead of simply jumping to the end of a program and then jumping to the beginning of a program we wanted it to stop on every 15-minute tickmark on the status bar.  We thought this would be a handy way to get to a different part of the program more quickly.

We went to Beta and our testers complained.  They were used to easily jumping to the end of a program and pressing LEFT to be prompted to delete it.  Some had even programmed their Pronto remotes with this functionality.  We quickly changed the design, and now the mode only applies if you are in fast forward or rewind mode.

Now we challenge each other to remember the "skip-to-tick incident" if we are considering making behavioral changes to fundamental UI behaviors.  To mitigate having these problems, we try to design for the future (where we want to eventually take the feature) and then pare it down to what we are going to ship in a particular release.  This lets us show how the experience will naturally evolve rather than having to radically change it to accommodate future functionality.  We try to add to the experience rather than change it or take away something users rely on.

MH: How does your team decide when a feature or functionality is too complex to fit into the TiVo paradigm?

MS: In general a feature won't be ruled out as "too complex" because we have strong design team that can make anything easy to use.  A feature will get ruled out if it doesn't apply or appeal to enough users.  The TiVo service is for anyone who watches TV.  My grandmother can use it.  My toddler can use it.  We are unlikely to add a specialized or power-user feature when our engineering effort can be better spent making entertainment better for everyone.

MH: What's the one feature or concept people find most confusing and how did you determine that?

MS: We learn about user confusion by tracking emails and calls to Customer Support, survey responses, issues in usability testing, watching people use the product in their homes, Beta reports, etc.  There isn't one area that stands out as the most confusing, but there are areas of the UI we want to make as easy as possible.  We would like the experience of un-packing the TiVo DVR, hooking it up to your TV, and configuring it for your cable or satellite provider to be simple and fun.  We are working on innovative UI to help with this.

MH: TiVo is not only one of the best examples of powerful-yet-easy visual interfaces, I'd say TiVo is probably the only device that I actually enjoy hearing. The sound interface is a helpful, effective addition to the UI and rarely gets in the way. I can't point to many products that use sound effectively aside from TiVo and I'm curious how the team developed it. Were there long discussions or testing involved to help determine how intrusive sounds should be?

MS: Since TVs aren't silent, we didn't want the TiVo interface to be silent either.  The initial sound concepts fell into a few categories.  Some were mechanical, some synthesized, others more organic.  We quickly identified the organic, happy sounds as better in line with our brand value of "playful".  It actually didn't take too many iterations to get it right.

MH: The remote control that comes with a TiVo has been the subject of much writing in the past, but I'd love to hear about how that came about as well. While the TiVo UI was a breakthrough without equal, in the case of the remote, TiVo took something with 30+ years of history and remade it into something more useful than anything that had come before. How long did it take to develop the new remote? Did user testing prompt the team to make the pause button the largest or was that an early design  that stuck around?

MS: The creation of the TiVo remote is well detailed in this New York Times article.

We continue to evolve the remote.  The Consumer Design and User Experience teams work closely together to evaluate every button and question whether we *really* need it.  We use the same research methodologies we use to evaluate the on-screen interface, only our prototypes are made of foam.  A complex remote leads you to believe it is a complex product.  Our remote is simple and elegant just like our UI.

---

Note: Paul Newby (Director, TiVo Consumer Design) and Margret Schmidt will be speaking at the monthly meeting of BayCHI (Bay Area Computer Human Interaction group) on Tuesday, December 14 in Palo Alto (open to the interested public).

Comments

[Joe Clark]

You quite possibly could have asked about accessibility, which is consistently ignored in PVR interfaces. They're not really making "user" interfaces; they're making "nondisabled-user" interfaces.

[Lester Nelson]

Thanks Matt for that very interesting interview, and thanks Margret for taking the time to answer his questions! I really enjoyed this.

[Jerry Kindall]

The TiVo remote is one of the worst remotes I have ever used. It is symmetrical, so it is far too easy to pick it up pointed the wrong direction if you're not looking, and then nothing does what you expect. The directional pad is also hard to use without looking at, because there's no tactile indication as to where exactly Left, Right, Up and Down are on that great big round button. Many's the time I've got the kettledrum when trying to move through a menu.

The first month I had my TiVo, I bought a Sony RM-VL900 universal remote to run it. Its orientation is easily determined, and the directional controls are separate buttons that are easily distinguishable. Plus, its buttons glow in the dark.

[MegaZone]

Matt, thanks for the interview, nice work.

Jerry - the remote seems to be one of those love it or hate it things. It has won awards, many users (myself included) love the design and wish more remotes were like it. I've never had a problem with the controls - the only thing that has thrown me is on the Pioneer remote they moved some of the buttons around and I hit the wrong thing if I've been using a standard S2 remote for a while.

But from time to time I see someone like yourself who really doesn't like the remote, some who call it the worst remote they've used. So I guess it just goes to show that you can't please everyone. I hate 'button farm' remotes - like the one Toshiba used for the SD-H400. Terrible design, rows of similar buttons. Most remotes I have are like that.

[John Dowdell]

Joe, which sensory modalities do you see as the critical ones here? Is the fact that manipulation of a remote is required the critical issue, or is it more the visual acuity angle, or something else...?

(Matt & Margret, thanks for the story, good brainfood.)

jd/mm

[Karl Elvis]

I have to agree with Jerry, the TiVo remote isn't great. I've got worse remotes, but this one isn't at all well designed or thought out. I think claims of how much research they did on it are over-stated.

[Jason Snell]

Actually, the original TiVo remote was symmetrical, and it was a huge error. The new remotes aren't so symmetrical anymore... there's been a slight elongation and change in button placement that makes it much, much harder to mistake up from down.

I love my TiVo "peanut" remote. It just fits perfectly in my hand. Actually, the original one fit better than the new ones do, but I did endlessly pick it up upside-down.

As for the d-button, I don't see the problem. Left is left, right is right, and so on. :-)

[Ashley Aitken]

I think the remote is good but could be improved (and probably has been - I'm using a S1 remote so may not be benefiting from improvements in later designs).

I too think it needs to be more asymmetrical in some way (maybe even something on the back surface to signal the direction it should be pointing, abrasive surface etc.)

I also believe the rocker button could be better - often hit down when I been right or left. I think ridges on the flat surface would give ones thumb something to aim for.

Generally, speaking though I also think it is a lot better than remotes with rows and rows of buttons. As well, its clear each button has been well though out.

Cheers,
Ashley.

[Mike]

I want to know when I can get the TIVO effect on my radio. I want to be able to backup and listen to the traffic report, favorite song, news, etc. I want to be able to pause radio while I need to concentrate on entrance/exit ramps and merging. Then I can restart the programming where I paused.
I actually would like to have a TIVO life. A place where I can backup in time and jump over unwanted distractions. TIVO-WORLD is a place I want to move to. . . .

[Matt Haughey]

I think the remote being mostly symmetrical (my series 2 DTiVo remote is only barely bigger on the bottom end) is the only major flaw I can point to.

I rave about the remote otherwise because it's the first remote I picked up the first day and could use without looking at it. It sits in your hand and feels natural. All the most used buttons are within easy reach and they're much larger than everything else. It's a brilliant remote and I haven't found anything better since (I have noticed the Harmony remotes have copied the peanut style to a T).

My square DVD remotes have identically shaped and sized buttons, all aligned to a grid that does put precedence on what buttons are most important. If I'm watching a movie and I want to rewind something, I have to turn on a light, read the small print on the remote, and hit the right button. With a TiVo remote, my thumb rests on the pause/rw/ff control area and it's trivial to go back a few seconds.

I really wish my TiVo remote had some universal codes so it could power my DVD player.

[kmoka]

Oh, TiVo Radio? Now there's an idea. I have to agree with Mike - it would be nice to "back up" the radio to hear something again like an important news story, Amber Alert, etc. As far as the remote goes, totally love it. I wish I had more remotes like it.

[Augie De Blieck Jr.]

One of the closest things to a TiVo for Radio right now is a think called the RadioShark from Griffin Tech:

http://www.griffintechnology.com/products/radioshark/

I just picked up a second TiVo. I vastly prefer the remote from my First Gen Sony TiVo over the peanut one with the Humax USA DVD burner, just for the arrow control. I can't tell you how many times I thought I was clicking left or right and ended up going diagonally, or straight up or down. Plus, I could use the old remote with one hand. It make it easier to quickly delete programs. With this peanut remote, I need to have a second hand on the lower half of the remote to get to the "clear" button, or I have to put the remote down and pick it back up to get my fingers in that section of the remote. I also like having the SELECT button in the middle of the cross.

[New York]

Interesting how the subject diverged...

I really prefer the remote for my Sony TiVo (last TiVo Sony released) vs. the standard TiVo peanut remote. Ive used both extensively...

[Belgand]

Frankly one of my problems with TiVo is that it's a bit too much like an Apple product in that the desire for a simple, clean design often comes at the expense of powerful functionality and results in many poor decisions. Take the title search feature for example. It isn't really much of a search, it just pages down the list. So if I type in the second word in a title or only remember a small bit I can't do a proper search for something. It also lacks boolean logic searches in the Wishlists, something that perhaps the kind of person who fears reading a manual or learning something might not ever use, but would be very useful for the rest of us (e.g. record all episodes of the X-Files, but not those with Robert Patrick because the later seasons aren't as good, or perhaps date-based searching so I can watch for early episodes I've missed and skip the ones I've seen a million times).

Then again the biggest, simplest UI problem is that TiVo never tells you how much space you have left. The best kludge is to make a guess based on suggestions and feedback when recording new programs.

I love my TiVo, don't get me wrong, but just like the Macintosh it feels a little too idiot-proofed with the result being that if you're not actually an idiot, you don't have any options.

[dansays]

Does that photo qualify as a mirror shot? Is a video camera a "reflective surface"? Or is that too metaphorical?

[Joseph Juhnke]

I enjoyed your interview. I very much enjoy insights into the minds that create interactions that force paradigm shifts.

I would like to point out to the trigger-happy critics above that interaction is not a binary state and customer acceptance is the only true metric by which we can measure the quality of a design.

Thank you Margret and team!

[Joe Clark]

Well, physical manipulation of the remote is one issue, but the bigger issue is making the onscreen interface work for a blind person. (And also recording audio description.)

There has been no serious attempt anywhere to fix the problem (one is indeed aware of the U.K. VISTA project) and it's gonna come back and haunt the industry eventually. But from first principles, anybody who can't use your box ain't gonna buy one, so you'd think they'd work on this. As ever, technology fanboys make devices for people exactly like themselves.

[Kiely]

A former neighbor of ours has a TiVo unit. She gave me a demo video which she produced herself. I like the little pop sound it makes when you select certain things! How do you know when to pop it? Can SOMEBODY help me PLEASE?

[Kiely]

A former neighbor of ours has a TiVo unit. She gave me a demo video which she produced herself. I like the little pop sound it makes when you select certain things! How do you know when to pop it? Can SOMEBODY help me PLEASE?

[Gloria]

I love my Tivo and i have Tivo since 2004. i want to know this answer right away. When I record the soap opera General Hospital and I go to watch it, the blurb ALWAYS has a thumbs down mark next to it.. Every single show that i record has a green thumbs. Why is it that General has the red thumbs down always. I need an explanation please. I am a big General Hospital fan and I am upset by the Hands Down Symbol....