Inconsistent human interface

[Wildroverandy]

After using Sky Stream (on both a puck and a Glass TV), it's clear to me that Sky really need to work on their 'human interface' standards.

Over 40 years ago Steve Jobs came up with the concept, and has been both praised and critised for that. Personally I think it was a great idea, and for me has worked well for my needs.

However, we have a service here that is used mainly by average people. Most of which are not tech savvy, and are not willing, or able, to workaround so many glitches or have to operate everything is so many different ways (he majority won't even find these forums, or even bother to try).

In particular, advert skipping. We're being charged extra for that service, and OK, it offers some value for that. However, it's not acceptable that we have to learn how to skip adverts for every channel - they all work in a different way - when they work at all. Even on one channel, two programmes might not skip the same way.

Programme and episode links work randomly, and need mucking about to get the right episodes to play.

Even having to mess about with various setup configurations just to get some of it to work at all, it's not ideal as a customer experience.

I feel Sky are a big enough company to insist that all apps should comply with certain minmum interface standards, so they are reliable, and simple to use for the average user. If I press skip on an advert break, I shouldn't have to look at what channel it's on before remembering what operation is needed to make that work - or whether it needs some button tomfoolery to get it to even work at all.

Don't get me wrong, I'm mostly happy using my Sky Stream service, the content I get is what makes its value, but it can be frustrating at times, and it shouldn't be.

[Angel_Aka]

@Wildroverandy 

Whilst I agree that it would be nice to have a common interface across everything, I fear it's highly unlikely to ever happen. 

In the streaming age, every broadcaster and streamer wants to retain control of their own content and force the user to use their own app. This decision is not Sky's - it's the original broadcaster/streamer. 

Advertising is how commercial television and streaming services fund much of their programme-making so the act of being able to skip them is never going to be made easy. Services such as ITVX Premium and Channel 4+ would much rather you pay them directly for their ad-free service, rather than a lesser amount for an often clunky but functional ad-skipping service from Sky. 

As viewers, we've had many years of being able to record programming onto hard drives and to simply fast forward past advertising. Those days are coming to an end. Advertising is much harder to avoid now, unless you pay for an ad-free tier of a streaming service, you'll have to either deal with the clunky ad-skipping offered by Sky, or suffer the adverts. 

[Wildroverandy]

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@Angel_Aka wrote:

@Wildroverandy 

Whilst I agree that it would be nice to have a common interface across everything, I fear it's highly unlikely to ever happen. 

In the streaming age, every broadcaster and streamer wants to retain control of their own content and force the user to use their own app. This decision is not Sky's - it's the original broadcaster/streamer. 

Advertising is how commercial television and streaming services fund much of their programme-making so the act of being able to skip them is never going to be made easy. Services such as ITVX Premium and Channel 4+ would much rather you pay them directly for their ad-free service, rather than a lesser amount for an often clunky but functional ad-skipping service from Sky. 

As viewers, we've had many years of being able to record programming onto hard drives and to simply fast forward past advertising. Those days are coming to an end. Advertising is much harder to avoid now, unless you pay for an ad-free tier of a streaming service, you'll have to either deal with the clunky ad-skipping offered by Sky, or suffer the adverts. 

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Of course, I am playing Devil's Advocate a but here, with a hint of wishful thinking.

I'm not asking anyone to change content, just to make button presses consistent. I appreciate why they do it, but whatever the reasons, and the value, we are paying for something that doesn't work properly.

I'm just trying to discuss it really, if it's ignored, then it'll never change - even if it's unlikely anyway. Take it as feedback perhaps. Of course I can just put up, or not have the service at all.

cheers.

[Angel_Aka]

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@Wildroverandy wrote:

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@Angel_Aka wrote:

@Wildroverandy 

Whilst I agree that it would be nice to have a common interface across everything, I fear it's highly unlikely to ever happen. 

In the streaming age, every broadcaster and streamer wants to retain control of their own content and force the user to use their own app. This decision is not Sky's - it's the original broadcaster/streamer. 

Advertising is how commercial television and streaming services fund much of their programme-making so the act of being able to skip them is never going to be made easy. Services such as ITVX Premium and Channel 4+ would much rather you pay them directly for their ad-free service, rather than a lesser amount for an often clunky but functional ad-skipping service from Sky. 

As viewers, we've had many years of being able to record programming onto hard drives and to simply fast forward past advertising. Those days are coming to an end. Advertising is much harder to avoid now, unless you pay for an ad-free tier of a streaming service, you'll have to either deal with the clunky ad-skipping offered by Sky, or suffer the adverts. 

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Of course, I am playing Devil's Advocate a but here, with a hint of wishful thinking.

I'm not asking anyone to change content, just to make button presses consistent. I appreciate why they do it, but whatever the reasons, and the value, we are paying for something that doesn't work properly.

I'm just trying to discuss it really, if it's ignored, then it'll never change - even if it's unlikely anyway. Take it as feedback perhaps. Of course I can just put up, or not have the service at all.

cheers.

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I think that was part of the beauty of the Sky Q interface - when I had it I remember that using the remote became such a second nature that I could pick it up and not have to look at it when using it. My fingers knew where to go and which buttons to press to do the things I wanted. 

I found the SkyOS interface used on Sky Stream to be too inconsistent and ultimately infuriating. Even with ad-skipping for free I just became too frustrated by it and ultimately got rid of my Stream puck.

AFAIK there isn't a single TV service provider who uses a consistent interface covering all apps, or has the ability to enable some form of ad-skipping within the same interface, certainly not within the streaming landscape. 

Personally, I refuse to be subjected to advertising which cannot be skipped, so since leaving Sky I now pay for premium tier subscriptions to various streaming services and watch on demand. The very occasional thing we want to watch on Channel 5 I'll record from Freeview onto a USB flash drive attached to my TV. That way we can skip the ads with a few clicks on the TV remote. Simple.  

[TimmyBGood]

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@Wildroverandy wrote:

I feel Sky are a big enough company to insist that all apps should comply with certain minmum interface standards, so they are reliable, and simple to use for the average user. 

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Sky cannot 'insist' on anything which looks like potentially unfair interference in the television market: I suspect Ofcom and the CMA would be distinctly upset if they tried.  

[Wildroverandy]

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

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@Wildroverandy wrote:

I feel Sky are a big enough company to insist that all apps should comply with certain minmum interface standards, so they are reliable, and simple to use for the average user. 

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Sky cannot 'insist' on anything which looks like potentially unfair interference in the television market: I suspect Ofcom and the CMA would be distinctly upset if they tried.  

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I'm sure they could insist their apps work in a reliable and consistent manner. It does, after all, reflect on Sky's reputation to some extent.

I'm not suggesting they control the content in anyway, just that the apps should be useable for the average human.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Wildroverandy wrote:

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I'm sure they could insist their apps work in a reliable and consistent manner. 

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No, I really don't think they can, particularly for the Public Service Broadcasters.

Sky could suggest, encourage, even cajole, but not 'insist', because ultimately the only sanction would be to remove access to the platform(s), and they just aren't allowed to do that.

[Anonymous]

"apps should be useable for the average human"

Would say in my opinion the apps couldn't be any more easier to use and couldn't really be dumbed down any more than they are already 

[Angel_Aka]

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@TimmyBGood wrote:

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@Wildroverandy wrote:

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I'm sure they could insist their apps work in a reliable and consistent manner. 

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No, I really don't think they can, particularly for the Public Service Broadcasters.

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Indeed. Sky can't insist anything. They are small fry compared to the likes of Apple and Amazon, both of whom have their own TV operating systems, tvOS and FireTV, and both of which are at the mercy of whatever UI the individual catch-up apps require them to use. 

Even Freely, the free-to-air streaming service run by the BBC, ITV, Ch4 and Five, whilst having a unified UI for their EPG and pausing of live TV, always insists on using the individual broadcaster's app to playback from the start or on demand. 

Whilst ad-skipping on SkyOS is actually quite a unique feature, not offered by any other UK streaming service AFAIK, it would necessitate an awful lot of negotiation between Sky and the UK commercial broadcasters in order to bring everyone's ad-supported catch-up streams into the Sky eco-system, something they are not going to want to do without significant financial gain. 

Perhaps if Comcast/Sky succeed in buying ITV, maybe Ch4 and Five will follow? If that becomes a reality then by all means they could bring everything under the one UI... and charge an awful lot more for ad-skipping. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@Angel_Aka wrote:

Perhaps if Comcast/Sky succeed in buying ITV, maybe Ch4 and Five will follow? 

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I'd imagine the CMA might have an opinion about that too ; )

[Wildroverandy]

I think we're going into this too deeply. I'm not looking at changing the content, of indeed how the apps are separate, or use their own layouts etc. I'm just suggesting it would be more usual to expect a certain thing to happen when a certain button, or combination of buttons, is pressed.

In this case, I'm merely suggesting it'd be better if when I press the FF button on my remote, that a known function will happen - i.e. ads skip, as advertised.  It's not unreasonable, this has been a thing for decades. This has nothing to do with broadcasting standards, I'm not suggesting they control the content provided by the third party.

The fact that they're apps provided by third parties shouldn't matter. A platform maker has always provided at least guidelines so that all software on that platform operates in a predictable manner. Certainly for core functions anyway. For example, basic functions like Save, Open, Information, Copy, Paste, and so on, have always operated with the same key presses. For sure, it's a different key combo between, say, Apple and Windows, but on each platform, given key presses perform the same function in every app. Mostly because of developer guidelines, and partly because it's just sensible.

It's not unreasonable, or unexpected, for a platform maker to a give UI guidelines to developers.

It doesn't need Sky to take over the UI completely, just a guideline for how an app should behave on their platform. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to press a certain button, and have perform an operation in a predictable fashion.

Of course, I know it's all idealistic, and yeah, it'll probably never happen.

[MarkGoldsmith]

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@Wildroverandy wrote:

The fact that they're apps provided by third parties shouldn't matter.

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Unfortunately this is exactly the reason that the UI is inconsistent, as each app will do things things in their own way.

Essentially if Sky tried to in any way give minimum guidelines to say look on our platform when a user presses this button, your app must so this......., just cannot happen. What would end up happening is that all these third parties would just pull their apps from Sky's platform, as they would in no way spend a lot more time and money developing a completely custom app experience just to work on Sky's platform. For these third party app providers they already have to make sure their apps will run and function as expected on a host of other devices and operating systems, that they certainly won't be interested adding in additional functionality for a small percentage of the user base using it on Sky's platform.

[Wildroverandy]

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@MarkGoldsmith wrote:

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@Wildroverandy wrote:

The fact that they're apps provided by third parties shouldn't matter.

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Unfortunately this is exactly the reason that the UI is inconsistent, as each app will do things things in their own way.

Essentially if Sky tried to in any way give minimum guidelines to say look on our platform when a user presses this button, your app must so this......., just cannot happen. What would end up happening is that all these third parties would just pull their apps from Sky's platform, as they would in no way spend a lot more time and money developing a completely custom app experience just to work on Sky's platform. For these third party app providers they already have to make sure their apps will run and function as expected on a host of other devices and operating systems, that they certainly won't be interested adding in additional functionality for a small percentage of the user base using it on Sky's platform.

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Ok, sure. But we're talking about the fast forward button here. Surely that's usually worked pretty much the same since it was invented, I dunno, nearly a hundred years ago?

Shouldn't it work in the same way on any platform in any app. It doesn't need reinvention.

I must admit I'm quite surprised by the robust defence of the software/service providers here.  Am I really so wrong to want this?

Of course I have no expectations of it happening, but really, does nobody else want such functionality?

[SteveWac]

For me it's about what sky can control that is inconsistent, the UI experience is poor with sky stream. 

For example:

Using the EPG

Sometimes the left menu (All channels, news, kids, sport, etc) disappears by it's own after a few seconds, sometimes it stays there until a remote button is pressed. 

Pressing up on the remote sometimes goes "up" the EPG decrementing the channel number, sometimes pressing "up" increments the channel number (I think it does this when the back button is pressed whilst watching a channel).  Just inconsistent....

Selecting a program episode to add to your playlist seems to just add a link to the entire series rather than the specific episode you want to watch. 

EPG shows a small window containing the program playing, but there appears to be no way to easily select this and play full screen, the only way I know of is to press the home button and select "currently playing"

The EPG is not as good as the Freeview EPG in regards to the fact the Freeview EPG allows you to scroll to the left going back in time to see what was on, selecting a program will then play that specific program via the appropriate catch-up app.

It also seems there are numerous secret remote button presses, for example, whilst watching a program, press enter to see info (no info button on remote), if you hold left button down whilst looking at info you can go back to the EPG, oh no it's not working, there's is a way to do this but I can't remember.

It seems the remote is too minimalist for it's own good.

[Wildroverandy]

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@SteveWac wrote:

For me it's about what sky can control that is inconsistent, the UI experience is poor with sky stream. 

For example:

Using the EPG

Sometimes the left menu (All channels, news, kids, sport, etc) disappears by it's own after a few seconds, sometimes it stays there until a remote button is pressed. 

Pressing up on the remote sometimes goes "up" the EPG decrementing the channel number, sometimes pressing "up" increments the channel number (I think it does this when the back button is pressed whilst watching a channel).  Just inconsistent....

Selecting a program episode to add to your playlist seems to just add a link to the entire series rather than the specific episode you want to watch. 

I haven't seen the menu or 'up' button issues myself. But the series selection in a playlist is something I haven't noticed, as I usually want to put an entire series in there - so far.

I have noticed that it may select a different channel to watch a programme on though. In particular I want to put the Channel 4 F1 into my playlist, but Sky insists on it being the Sky F1 channel, which I don't subscribe to.

EPG shows a small window containing the program playing, but there appears to be no way to easily select this and play full screen, the only way I know of is to press the home button and select "currently playing"

I've found that just hitting the centre button opens it to full screen. I've seen that on many Smart TV EPGs in exactly ther same way.

The EPG is not as good as the Freeview EPG in regards to the fact the Freeview EPG allows you to scroll to the left going back in time to see what was on, selecting a program will then play that specific program via the appropriate catch-up app.

It also seems there are numerous secret remote button presses, for example, whilst watching a program, press enter to see info (no info button on remote), if you hold left button down whilst looking at info you can go back to the EPG, oh no it's not working, there's is a way to do this but I can't remember.

It seems the remote is too minimalist for it's own good.

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I agree about the Freeview EPG ( I had a YouView box myself), it was nice to be able to look back and select something to catchup on. Like you say, I haven't found a way on the Sky Stream box. I haven't bothered looking at secret button presses, although I dind't know there was such a thing.

In fairness, it has been doesn with minimalist buttons, and much better. Our Samsung TV had one, and was fine for most of it. And of course the Apple TV remote is about as minimalist as it gets, but it doesn't seem to be a problem (just the silly touch pad thing, which they've now replaced with buttons).

But yes, overall, the whole Stream UI is messy, I was just picking out the worst of it as far as I'm concerned.

Cheers.