The web is full of all kinds of content, and the amount of content being generated and added to the web is staggering. The number of web pages worldwide grew by 21.4 million in 2010 to reach 255 million web pages.^[12] How much of this is valuable and compelling content? Obviously that is a subjective question, but the idea behind delivering compelling content on Google TV depends on three factors: audience, quality, and relevance. Your goal is to demand the user’s attention.

Identifying your audience is just as important as the actual content that you plan on delivering. Take some time to think about who will be consuming your content. Is it college students, baby boomers, children, professionals, techies, new moms, or all of the above? While this may seem straightforward, you’ll need to determine early on whether your content is universally compelling or whether it is compelling to a niche audience. There is no right answer or approach to this, but the key is to identify what your audience will want to access. Is it cute videos of kittens playing with yarn, how-to-cook videos, beautiful photographs of landscapes, news headlines, or a casual game?

If you have a popular website, say something like a blog, consider whether the audience for your blog will be the same one that accesses the web app you build for Google TV. Figure 2-1 shows a web app for CHOW, a culinary TV channel that offers users short-length tips and how-to videos for the kitchen.

Figure 2-1. CHOW offers a variety of useful content, including a set of videos that tell users what not to do in the kitchen

Quality is a subjective factor, but ensuring that your content displays and works well on large screens is crucial. Remember, your target device is the best and largest screen in the house, so your content should meet user expectations. This logic applies to the content as well as to assets (graphics) and other elements that are used in your UI. You can have great video content for example, but your app will be a letdown if it has small buttons or pixelated images as part of the UI. Vimeo’s “couchmode” experience demonstrates a good combination of content and UI elements, and it launches high definition videos in full screen by default (Figure 2-2).

Figure 2-2. Vimeo’s 10-foot experience focuses on delivering high definition videos

What about relevance? How can relevance be determined? It will become clear quickly if your content is not relevant to the audience you’ve identified or if the content is not relevant to TV in general. For example, you may have aggregated a lot of user-generated content (UGC) on a website about civil war history. Depending on the nature of the content, it may or may not be relevant to an audience. C-SPAN.org, a popular website with content focused on U.S. government and public affairs activity, has produced a web app for Google TV that features its most relevant content: its videos (Figure 2-3).

Figure 2-3. There is not doubt that C-SPAN.org’s web app is relevant for a niche audience interested in government and public affairs

Say that you have a dedicated group of war history buffs that has a significant online presence. Great, that is a readily identifiable target demographic. But if most of your content is dense text and poorly drawn maps of battlefields, then the content is not relevant to the target device. Lots of text is not ideal for reading on TV and neither are graphics that don’t display well.

One of the commonalities that we’ve seen for web apps that get a good reception from users is the streamlining of features and functionality. It’s great if your app has lots of features and functionality, but these should not be exposed all at once. Giving users the ability to discover more complex features and functionality is a fundamental aspect of good UX design in the present day.

Remember that TV has traditionally been a passive device (until now) and users are accustomed to using a D-Pad to interact in simple ways with their TVs. Asking them to use keyboard shortcuts or including twenty menu items on the main UI makes the learning curve steeper. Your goal is to let users explore your app so that they can gradually access more advanced features.

The model for user behavior with a web app on a desktop or even mobile devices is mature. Users are accustomed to the functions associated with different elements and they understand input methods, such as click and right-click on desktops or swipe and pinch on touch-enabled mobile devices. Some of the same functions apply to UIs designed for Google TV, but the overall model is different.

As you’ll find in Chapter , D-Pad navigation should be the primary way that users interact with your web app. This approach means that you should constrain the UI to reflect changes in state, selection, or focus based on left, right, up, or down navigation. Your UX should rely on clear visual cues that are explicit in giving a user a sense of what’s selected or where a user has set the focus of the D-Pad. Your goal is to make it as easy and intuitive as possible for users to understand the context of their actions.

Along with clear visual cues, a compelling app should enable users to easily navigate and select content. There are endless possibilities for setting up navigation flow around a site, so the idea is to eliminate the painful parts of navigation.

Providing users with access to content that is buried under six menu levels or forcing users to scroll through hundreds of entries may not be the best idea when a user is laying on his sofa and using the D-Pad to navigate around your content. Your goal is to get the user to the content they want as quickly as possible.

You’ll need to have some knowledge beyond plain HTML, unless you plan on building a static web page that offers no interactivity. To build a good app, you’ll want to use advanced HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, or Flash (or a combination thereof). Ideally, you’ve developed web apps that are compatible with modern browsers, such as Google Chrome or Safari. Don’t worry if you don’t have this experience, as fortunately there is a lot of information out there on web development.

There are numerous resources out there to get you up to speed on developing web apps. First and foremost, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the process of web development and the concept of a web app. Google’s http://code.google.com is a good place to familiarize yourself with some of the technologies that we’ll be using. If you’re just starting out, it’s worthwhile to check out a few websites before diving into books. Be sure to check out the following resources.

We’ve already touched on the target environment a bit, but it’s worth reiterating that your web app will be used in a casual environment, more than likely the living room. While this little bit of knowledge may seem trivial, we often see this aspect overlooked in many of the web apps developers have put together for TV. It is key for you to remember that your app will be used in the living room or an equivalent environment.

What’s your attitude when you’re in front of your TV? Do you feel high-strung or relaxed? Ideally it’s the latter. Most people are in a relaxed mind-set when they’re in front of their TV. Even if you’re asking the user to interact with the TV or if your web app is more of a utility, it should still accommodate the mind-set that people have when they’re used to relaxing ten feet away from a big screen.

How have you traditionally interacted with your TV? This question will help you pinpoint how you should lead your users in terms of features and functionality, both of which drive user interaction. There are existing models that a majority of users have become accustomed to when it comes to interacting with their TVs. Consider how you currently interact with your TV and transfer that knowledge to your app.