Time to kill the remote!

Well, if design is how it works I guess we should just look around and realize that there is plenty of room for improvement. We are surrounded by tons of products, devices, services and what not. Do they all work the way they should? For sure they work and have been working for some years or even decades now. But is the way they work now, the best possible way? Can’t they be improved upon? Are we settling for less? Are we getting comfortable with the comfort zone and not pushing the limits and challenging the status quo? Let’s try that.

I am particularly intrigued by one product which we all use daily and that has evolved over time but probably on the wrong end and the experience of using that product has gone from bad to worse. Check it out for yourself.

Am I the only one to believe that after decades of evolution we have finally settled for something which is far from being simple, looks worse than its predecessor and is a pain to use. Obviously not! And that’s why we have seen quite a few mobile apps trying to solve this problem. Something like this

My problem with such apps is that almost all of them aren’t smart enough and use the same kind of interface as a physical remote and just take away the awfulness of too many physical buttons.

So, I decided to do a bit of research and asked few of my friends and colleagues (16 in total — not a big enough sample size but I guess fair enough for an informal project like this) about how they usually interact with a TV remote. This is what I learnt about their user journey (their first interaction when they switch on the TV and they know what they want to watch because otherwise one is anyways going to surf the channels):

• They remember the channel numbers of their favourite channels and press the channel number straightaway. This probably takes 4–5 presses to switch a channel.
• Others first press menu, then choose the category say sports and then scroll through the channels to arrive at the desired one and press ok. Number of presses — take your guess.

And here’s the data

Now, let’s see what a user goes through. Let’s say it’s Saturday 8pm and the user knows it’s time for her favourite series say MasterChef. The first thing that comes to her mind is the series name MasterChef. Then she thinks of which channel it’s on — the channel name. And finally the channel number. And then, in the best case, the user still gotta press 4–5 buttons to get to the desired channel.

Series Name -> Channel Name -> Channel Number

This got me thinking, why can’t we design an intelligent enough remote which

• Suggests what the user is most likely to watch, based on what she last watched.
• Suggest what else is on right now, based on user’s past watching habits.
• Suggest what else is popular/trending.
• Change the channel at one click (or much lesser clicks than before).
• And looks decent as well.

And this is what I could think of (PS — This is not a complete app design. It’s just some random thoughts quickly put together.)

So, as soon as the user opens it —

• The first thing it suggests is MasterChef (Remember what the user thinks of first — it’s the series name and not the channel name or the channel number) because that’s what she saw last Sat 8pm as well and is more likely to continue watching it. Also, see how the user get’s to her favourite channel in just one click (assuming she wants to watch MasterChef this time as well). Even if that might not be the case, the system will learn the user watching preferences and will be intelligent enough in no time to suggest the relevant suggestions and hence will get there in one click.
• It suggests any other series (Man Vs Wild) that the user has watched in the past.
• Also, it suggests what’s popular right now say any sports event which is live right now..say IPL.
• Then in the Timeline, it basically shows what’s on at that particular time on the user’s favourite or frequently watched channels.
• And in the Channels tab, it basically lists the users favourite channels so that browsing through them becomes less of a pain and more of an experience to cherish.

Well, these are just initial thoughts and I haven’t taken time to refine them, but would love to know your thoughts about the same. Feel free to suggest any improvements or corrections.