Digital TV and fruit drinks

The DTI have just published a report about usability and accessible design of Digital TV.

I have only scanned the thing but it appears to be a sound piece of research. I was looking for any references to the 50+’s use of the technology and came upon this block of text. Have a read.

‘..While dexterity, vision and hearing impairment are important sources of exclusion, the greatest source of exclusion is a result of the cognitive challenges of current DTV equipment. There are two main problem areas. The first is that the paradigm for user interaction is drawn from the menu-driven world of personal computers whereas some people – particularly the very elderly - have never used personal computers and are
therefore not familiar with menus. The second is poor ‘system interaction design’ where, even for people who are familiar with new technologies, DTV equipment is non-intuitive and exhibits inconsistencies…’.

I think this is saying that the technology is too complicated to use and anybody who missed using texting and MS Windows is going to struggle. I must find an opportunity to use the phrase ‘cognitive challenges’. Why make it so complicated?

Now for fruit drinks. This morning I saw a presentation by the Marketing Director of Innocent, the fruit drinks company. Excellent session. He said that a driving principle of the company is to ‘make the main thing the main thing’. What a simple and elegant sentence. If he ever decides to move out of fruit drinks he could lend a hand to the DTI in writing understandable text.