BBC

Luckily I was working with Wez who was an expert in Flash and was able to build quite comprehensive prototypes which felt incredibly realistic.

This really aided during lab sessions where we would sit participants in front of TVs and get them to interact with the remote.

We decided early on in the project to retain the full-screen broadcast in the background of the UI (User Interface) rather than a more conventional quarter screen view (where the broadcast is minimized into a small box). We intended to minimise disruption to other viewers whilst the person in charge of the remote looked for content.

This decision informed every aspect of the design.

The positioning of the content stream, the synopsis rollover and even the colour palette were all informed by this decision. The retention of full-screen broadcast meant the UI needed to sit on top of the background video, presenting the team with many challenges.

This left us with a precarious balancing act of trying to reserve as much real estate on the screen as possible for the broadcast whilst still trying to display the Red Button UI in a highly visible manner. No easy task when minimum font sizes are double those found online.

We faced many design challenges during the project but I'm incredibly proud of the design patterns we produced. These patterns have become the foundation of every BBC IPTV project since, including Sport, Glastonbury and iPlayer which I was also able to lead on.

We extensively user-tested prototypes throughout the project, iterating and developing based on feedback.

The project has since evolved into the Red Button Plus project but the patterns we developed are still the same.