On-Going activity status, let’s have it wherever it’s possible
It was weekend and I was watching TV, surfing all around channels to find my types of program, for example some comedy serials, soccer games, some scientific documentary, or comic cartoons like Family Guy.
My fingers was on remote and eyes on the screen, I kept pressing the remote buttons and screen was changing the pictures, on some channels, it was running boring drama and most of the channels was running commercials, my mind was scanning the program on the TV constantly.
After a while I was suddenly felt like I am hypnotized and just my finger and eyes are working, so I changed my body state by changing my seating position and took some rest.
Since I have searched more than 80 channels I thought of just going to those channels which I watch the most.
So again I've started the same thing but this time I was pressing the channel numbers but felt the same thing, everywhere its commercials, in fact I waited some time at some of the channels to know which program its running but it was boring…
And suddenly I recalled one of the heuristics points from Jacob Nielson which is “Visibility of system status: The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.”
So the lesson learned from this experience is that if these channels keep some tags like “Now Running > Program Name” during commercial as well as during program would help viewers to stay or switch to the next channels.
I haven’t done any research thou but I am quite sure that so many of us changes the channels if we see commercial or don’t know which program its running. If I would have known during commercial that which program is running, I would have surely kept my remote a side and have waited, but due to not having clarity on “What’s going on” I have changed the channels many a times.
I know there are a few channels that have a status label in the corner of the screen and some of the technology have a way to know this with channels list screen, but wish that everyone will care about this rules and show the current activity status.
So the moral of the story is not only during web page loading or component loading we should show “Loading…” or similar message but wherever it’s possible.
Make your visitors, customers and viewers life easy.
Posted by: Sohel Kapasi | sohelkapasi@gmail.com | +91 9922 79 8899 | +01 860 440 6579
May 31st, 2010 - 10:40
nice article… but these days most of the tv shows a small screen on right bottom there you can see what is coming on another channel rather than chaning a whole screen.. i think media also getting concious about users..
May 31st, 2010 - 11:12
@NDZ
Thank you very much for reading this article and providing valuable comment.
Yes, I have mentioned that point already at the end that there are some channels how shows that but not all, and mainly they show what is coming next in the same channel.
Here I have addressed about current status, means what is currently they are running on their channels if any commercial is going on.
March 3rd, 2011 - 11:11
Whenever I switch on tv and change to any of the news channels, there is 99% probability of commercial running. These days, they show 5 minutes of news and 15 minutes of commercials. Whats the use of tv then? I watch news on Doordarshan which atleast gives the whole news with just 1 or 2 breaks. And as for social channels, almost all have either saas bahu serials or the boring reality shows, no meaningful stuff. Those channels also have the same theme – 5 minutes of serial and 15 minutes break (they term as chota sa break but they do their lunch in that break). These channels suck sometimes….