Building a GoogleTV Interface
David Brooks, SVP Marketing Focus Features
Bill Corvino, Platform Engineer Supermonkey
Paul Shorey, Front End Developer Focus Features
OTT Design, CMS/Video Architecture, UI Design
I first begin architecting video platforms and interfaces when I directed the VOD distribution for Sundance Channel (2002-2006). Beyond delivering video and metadata to various cable providers for the Channel I learned a lot about managing assets for distribution to multiple platforms with incompatible specifications. This experience also informed my strategic approach to information architecture, which is to plan broader than your immediate needs, and to anticipate where platforms are headed, and to build according to these plans.
It's been exciting to work in this field during such a transitional time in content delivery as the industry has moved from embedded videos, to Flash, to VOD, SVOD, and on to custom video experiences delivered to your smart TV. The UI challenges we face today are largely centered around keeping an intuitive interface that users find consistent across all of their viewing apps, while also keeping a uniqueness to your own streaming product and brand.
In 2012 I had the opportunity to build a streaming platform for Focus Features on the short-lived GoogleTV platform. This was an exciting opportunity, and I learned a lot!
I will admit that I love everything Google. Although I am an iPhone and apple user, I use Google's products religiously including their cloud services. So I was excited when they released a streaming platform similar to a Roku. What made it so exciting is that they quickly had channels available for several popular networks like Nickelodeon and Adult Swim. My boss at the time, David Brooks agreed to allow me and my team to develop a Focus Features channel. This programming package would allowed us to offer our loyal fans behind-the-scenes and exclusive video programming. Google TV was ahead of its time in my opinion, and therefore short lived. Nonetheless, it was an exciting project to work on and taught me a lot about building navigation systems for OTT with minimal navigational controls.
The convenience of GoogleTV was that it could be developed using HTML5 which allowed our existing front-end developer to dive in. But there were also a couple of challenges with this approach.
The GoogleTV hardware did not have offer mouse nor a traditional remote control device. Instead, users accessed the interface using a wireless keyboard which had a DPAD integrated onto its side. This was a great solution for entering Search Queries into the interface, but presented some challenges with users not knowing how to perform common functions such as pause, fast forward, or even accessing the main window.
We felt we needed to address this in our own application since there were no common UI libraries within the GoogleTV libraries with which to direct users.
When we started designing our channel, there were already several channels launched within the GoogleTV interface which looked very similar to today's Roku interface. The individual channels typically launched with an intro screen and then a horizontal strip of videos from which users could select what to watch. Some channels organized their videos into a library of "collections" which is a feature we adopted as we began to organize and curate our own video inventory.
The horizontal strip interface presented some hierarchal challenges, but we did our best to create a sophisticated look and feel within these limitations, while also staying consistent to the standards that were emerging among the other channels, particularly the more popular ones.
One interesting nuance of the GoogleTV platform was that videos did not stop playing when the menu was accessed. This created some interesting challenges to presenting an interface that could layer on top of the currently playing content.
Sadly, GoogleTV was shuttered in 2014. It was a bit ahead of its time, and I'm sure I am not the only person who took learning from my experience developing for this platform onwards to other more current video platforms.
