Android TV

Question 1

What about casual TV consumption compared to mobile?

Answer 1

Unlike other devices we currently use, the TV is not a mobile device - so be sure to remember this when creating for the platform. Content should be your central focus when designing for TV, allow the user to kick back and consume media rather than having to read textual information on screen. And when this media is available, our users also want to be able to access it quickly and easily, meaning it should be no more than a click or two away at any time.

–> Keep your UI Design to a minimum and avoid the use of text where possible, instead conveying this information with the use of visual delights where possible.

Question 2

User story:

“I just want to sit down and watch something without having to perform numerous actions to begin consuming content”

SIMPLICITY!

Therefore, how should a designer keep the app simple?

Answer 2

• Keep the number of control interactions required to reach a goal to a minimum
• Reduce cognitive load with a simple UI –> easier to make decisions
• Keep the textual content to a minimum

Question 3

D-pad controllers have:

• 4 directional buttons
• central select button
• back button
• home button

It induces simplicity in navigation. What is the resulting commonly used pattern?

Answer 3

List and grid layouts + focus based navigation.

It provides a clear paths on both X and Y axis for the user to easily navigate through.

Question 4

Give some ways to indicate focused state

Answer 4

• Scaling the focused item to make it appear larger in size
• Changing the brightness of the item shadow to make it more visible
• Change the opacity of the item, applying transparency to less dominant items and bringing attention to the focused item
• Perform some form of animation on the focused item to show it’s being interacted with

Question 5

Voice input is essential to reduce friction because…

Answer 5

…it can be tiresome to perform textual input with a d-pad controller/game controller

Question 6

When it comes to searching for content, the […] provides a […] that reduces the friction of textual input.

Answer 6

When it comes to searching for content, the Leanback library provides a Search Fragment that reduces the friction of textual input.

Question 7

What could be another way to reduce textual input’s friction?

Answer 7

One other option here is to delegate user input to a mobile device - this is where you allow the user to input textual information into the TV system using their mobile device. To do this, your application could detect a nearby device (possibly using the WiFi network the TV is connected to) and display an option to input text by launching the application to allow user input via the users mobile device.

Question 8

Android TV Leanback Library propose components that conform to material design standards and provide a lot of standard functionality pre-implemented. How do we call those components?

Answer 8

Fragments

Ex:

• BrowserFragment
• SearchFragment
• VerticalGridFragment
• DetailsFragment
• ErrorFragment
• GuidedStepFragment
• PlaybackOverlayFragment