« EFF: Who Killed TiVoToGo? | Main | TiVo Series3 DRM glitches in the wild »

Usability tweaks in the Series 3 Remote

I love my new series 3 TiVo and I'll post a review in the next few days, but one thing keeps jumping out at me whenever I use it, and it's the new remote. After using it for a couple weeks, I have to say I don't like it, and I've figured out the problem.

Take a look at the button layout of an old Tivo remote and compare to the new one:

Did you notice how the volume/channel rockers moved up, and the thumbs up/down moved down? That little change is a big problem.

I've had a total of five TiVos over the past six years and with all of them, I've been able to use it by feel, without looking, thanks to the simple tight layout. All the normal things I do when watching TV like change channels, alter volume, and fast forward are within easy reach. You can leave your thumb in one spot and reach them all. The direction/select stuff was always at the top, but once you learned how far to "jump up" the remote with your thumb, it was easy to select a show, then start watching it and changing volume while zipping through the boring parts.

With the new remote, it's taking a long time to learn how to jump over those thumbs up/down buttons without looking. Now, maybe it's my muscle memory here that is the problem, but I've used other remotes and they often keep the most frequently used buttons together within easy reach.

Here's a highlighted view of my remotes, showing the differences:

I know that years of research went into the remote design. In my past interview with the head of user experience at TiVo, she covered the design of the remotes. I am surprised by these changes, since I don't often rate shows after the first couple weeks I own a TiVo. To help the suggested recordings engine, I might triple thumbs up the 4-5 shows I love and do the opposite with the ones I dislike, but after that early learning period, I don't use it at all. With the new remote, the ratings buttons are always there in the way.

On the other hand, I use the volume button constantly. Every channel has different volume levels and even within a single recording the ads are going to be much louder and dialogue is going to be quieter than action sequences. With a baby in the house, I'm using the volume button more than the fast forward these days, so from the moment I started using it, I noticed this new change.

Another minor quibble: the play/ffwd/rwd/slow area now has bigger buttons which is a good thing, but the buttons have sharp edges and similar shapes. With the old remote, the buttons are much smoother when your thumb is resting on them and the less important ones (like the slow button, which I use maybe once a month during an instant replay of sports, but otherwise not at all) are much smaller and less likely to be hit by accident.

Again, maybe it's just me and I realize these may sound like minor quibbles, but I definitely feel like the new remote isn't as easy to use and I'm constantly looking down at the remote to make sure I'm hitting the right button, which is something I haven't had to do in years with the previous TiVo remote designs. I'd love to hear the reasoning behind the change in the button layout.

by Matt Haughey October 3, 2006 in Product Reviews

Comments