Sunday, August 22, 2004
Quality versus choice in broadcasting - lessons for interactivity?
The Sunday Times has a couple of pieces that are strongly critical of the BBC's coverage of the Olympics, mainly focussing on the admittedly banal interviewing profered by the likes of Craig Doyle. Whilst he's not offensive, the stupid questions that reflect a major dumbing down (the BBC claim it is 'widening appeal', but I think we're talking the same thing) are indeed annoying ("Wow, a silver medal, great, well done" is not what a professional sportsperson expects as a probing interview question). But it got me to thinking why I wasn't as annoyed about it as the journalist in question - I mean, a lot of things usually annoy me and I write about some of them here. And I've come to the conclusion that part of the reason is that I forgive them their terrible clangers because I can choose different parts of the Olympics to watch, and so am not so tied into the director's decisions as to what is the most important. If I didn't have this choice, then I'd be more critical of what I'd been forced to watch - but instead of listening to crass interviews, I can flick across to another feed and watch something more interesting.
Does this effect feed into other interactive systems? If we choose to give users choice, will they be more tolerant of each individual offering? Can we trade quality for quantity? My experiences this past Olympic week suggest that this may indeed be an option. So searching for the best interface design may be a mistake - we maybe should be looking for a variety of options and not worrying about getting each one perfect. Perhaps we should employ a number of average designers and use all their ideas, rather than paying the same to one crack team to come up with the 'best' solution.....
The Sunday Times has a couple of pieces that are strongly critical of the BBC's coverage of the Olympics, mainly focussing on the admittedly banal interviewing profered by the likes of Craig Doyle. Whilst he's not offensive, the stupid questions that reflect a major dumbing down (the BBC claim it is 'widening appeal', but I think we're talking the same thing) are indeed annoying ("Wow, a silver medal, great, well done" is not what a professional sportsperson expects as a probing interview question). But it got me to thinking why I wasn't as annoyed about it as the journalist in question - I mean, a lot of things usually annoy me and I write about some of them here. And I've come to the conclusion that part of the reason is that I forgive them their terrible clangers because I can choose different parts of the Olympics to watch, and so am not so tied into the director's decisions as to what is the most important. If I didn't have this choice, then I'd be more critical of what I'd been forced to watch - but instead of listening to crass interviews, I can flick across to another feed and watch something more interesting.
Does this effect feed into other interactive systems? If we choose to give users choice, will they be more tolerant of each individual offering? Can we trade quality for quantity? My experiences this past Olympic week suggest that this may indeed be an option. So searching for the best interface design may be a mistake - we maybe should be looking for a variety of options and not worrying about getting each one perfect. Perhaps we should employ a number of average designers and use all their ideas, rather than paying the same to one crack team to come up with the 'best' solution.....
Comments:
Even I think that hiring different web designers is a good idea. But now a days there are many template sites that offer you that choice. Choosing from a host of readymade website templates is just like analyzing the works of different designers. I think that's what evolution is all about.
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(c) 2003-2005 Russell Beale
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