Does Your TV Remote Control Intimidate You?

You are not alone and help may be on the horizon. Daniel Woo at the University of New South Wales in Australia conducts an interactive exercise, called a Remote Control Shootout, with his HCI students using several different TV remote controls to try the same task (recording a TV program).

Each TV remote control organizes the task differently, so the students carefully note the different steps required. Then they look at how real people think about the task, which helps to identify out what features and action steps might work better.

About Daniel Woo:
Dr Woo is an early career researcher experienced in both pure and applied/commercial research and development projects. Woo's research to date focuses on the design and evaluation of user interfaces employing frameworks such as Norman's three component concept to map contiguities in the designer's, user's and the interactive system's respective modelling of a particular interface system. The designer's mental model may, depending on the interface platform and its actual implementation, give rise to a user mental model that is different from the designer's.

The application of this research has been largely in the area of speech and telephone technologies. In 2001, Woo advocated the need for HCI research activity and successfully applied for UNSW Research Infrastructure Block Grant funding to equip a new laboratory. The HCI laboratory has provided a significant platform to initiate new research collaborations in technology usability, with its multipurpose design also facilitating speech and audio research.

Through the early adoption and identification of specific technologies Woo has developed applications and consulted on projects including mobile inspection systems, text-to-speech for GSM telephone applications and speech recognition applications. Woo was a member of the Speech Communication Research Group at the National Acoustics Laboratories, Australia (1991-1994).

In addition Woo has been an early adopter of technologies and has helped organisations to migrate new technologies into their core business. Examples include Newton, QuickTime VR, Portable Document Format and FireWire video technologies applications in the building industry (Building Consultancy Pty. Ltd.).

Early experience with PC-based telephone hardware from Dialogic and Parity Software’s VOS enabled Woo to provide technical consultancy for interactive voice response systems and other computer-telephone applications (Vocom Systems Pty. Ltd.).

Click here to find out more about Daniel Woo’s research.