A Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing advisory group is set to release a "best-practices" list for creating a standard user interface that would optimize consumers’ experiences with on-demand services.
The CTAM On Demand Consortium -- made up of MSOs; premium and basic networks; studios; set-top-box and server vendors; and guide providers -- will present the guidelines during a kickoff session at the CTAM Digital & Broadband Conference in Los Angeles Tuesday.
After the presentation, CTAM will make them available to all interested parties on its Web site (www.ctam.com).
The consortium's user-interface subcommittee has worked for the past several months to research and identify user-interface attributes that are currently operational. Subsequently, they agreed to a comprehensive set of baseline recommendations designed to support development of similar, consumer-friendly interfaces and, thus, to accelerate consumer adoption of on-demand services and reduce associated business costs.
The MSOs agreed to incorporate the guidelines as they develop their future user interfaces.
Previously, the consortium released standards and metrics for collecting on-demand data, which the cable companies approved. These can also be accessed on CTAM’s site.
The consortium communicates regularly with Cable Television Laboratories Inc., as the work complements CableLabs' metadata efforts.
