We've relatively recently migrated from Sky+ HD to Sky Q, and we've been Sky TV users for just over 30 years, back to the days when it was analog, and I'd have to say that the user interface of the Q box is NOT user friendly, and it's a lot less intuitive than the Sky + box was, it's altogether too easy to get very confused when navigating, and some of the choices are not at all intuitive, and given that Sky have now forced the issue for many users by refusing to allow Sky + boxes to be reused by allocating them to a different viewing card, that's effectively killed many of those boxes, not exactly a user friendly move.
In the longer term, the future of satellite broadcasting is not secure, the costs are just too high, and with the way that broadband distribution is going, there will be very few people who won't be able to get broadband, even if that ends up being via mobile broadband, but bandwidth availability may well be a limiting factor there.
The other downside of all of this is that the standards that Sky work to have declined, at one time, the Sky service was a premium service that justified the higher price, but things like series link not working correctly all too often, and time shift recording not working correctly because the schedule has been changed, especially annoying on the channels controlled by Sky, F1 racing being a prime example, the number of times that Ted's notebook has been missed completely is just unbelievable, and that channel is controlled by Sky, but way too often, what's recorded is a joke, and that's totally frustrating.
It's issues like these that make it tempting to abandon the service, and forget about Sky completely, given the costs involved, and in the longer term going forward, if we're not going to have satellite, and only broadband services will be the future, then that's a very different system, and Sky need to look very carefully at how that will work for them, as they will lose their advantage, they'll be just another supplier alonside a host of effectively identical options, and that will make their options a lot more limited.
What will be critical is making the entire system user friendly, and not just for the younger generations, things like having remotes that can be seen sensibly with less than optimal eyesight, or less than optimal finger motion, they're going to be important, and need to be proof tested BEFORE release, not discovered by accident after the product hits the market, as a result of complaints from people who are effectively excluded from using the new system as a result of significant shortcomings in how it's been programmed and implemented.
That may mean that there needs to be a way to manage the whole short press or long press type options, to ensure that all users can use the system, not just the select ones that don't have problems. Even things like the number of button presses to get to some options can be an issue, especially for users with things like arthritis, multiple presses to navigate can be physically challenging, because of things like painful joints, or joints that just don't respond like they used to, but all too often, those sorts of issues don't even occur to the people doing the programming, years ago, I can remember a box we had where the user initial set up option was menu item 1, and the time recording option for time shifting was number 7, but to get to it took 7 down button pushes, and the developers never changed it, despite many complaints, and that's the sort of stupidity from developers who are only interested in getting a package out of the door, rather than getting it right for the end users, initial set up was used perhaps once or twice a year, time shift was in some cases used multiple times a day.
Shore, if twas easy we'd all be doin it!
