Erik Haugen Murvold NRK Filmarkiv Rapport 3

if viewers can’t find it»

part three:

prototyping

«It’s no point havingfabulous content

Designing a digital platform for visualizing half a century of archived NRK productions.

Eirik Haugen Murvold

The Oslo School of Architecture and DesignThe Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation

The first iteration of the prototype places the timeline in the center of the concept. In order to handle the productions with care and taking into consideration the aspect of culural heritage, the productions should be seen in the light of their broadcasting year.

This way, the user can journey from the start of norwegian television history up until today, being presented to history as he moves along the timeline.

First iteration

Prototyping with

This digital platform is meant to be used as a “tool” to discover titles in the NRK television archives you didn’t knew you wanted to see – or at all existed. It aims to bring forward television material all the way back from 1960 until today. How do you browse through 55 years of material, which consists of about 20 000 titles, in an understandable and effective way? Also, it should be noted that there are certainly different ways of going about this – however, the way I’ve gone about it is based on me aiming on the user that’s interested in exploring the archive, and not necessarily is dead set on finding a specific title. Hence, the digital platform is a result of need focus.

The overarching idea is that you browse through the content, year by year, and on the first level you’re presented to highlights of the each category in the year you’re situated in. Each category is represented by one “panel”. The size of the panel is based on the amount of content of that genre in that year. his makes it easy to scan and get a feeling of the different sizes. If you’re to move one level deeper, you can pick a category, i.e. humour, and is then presented with all humour titles that aired that year. By entering a specific title, you are then presented with an episode or clip of the title, and also related clips and titles. This makes it possible to discover new, interesting material.

Scroll between years to see what material was the most popular from each category in that specific year

All genres are represented with their own panel. The different sizes represent the different amount of favouring by the users. Each category has a specific placing

For 1992, “Fredrikssons fabrikk” is the most favorited, hence why it’s featured as a representation of humor in 1992

In 1993, “Fleksnes” is the most popular humor show

Dig deeper into the archive by filtrating by category. I.E. what humor shows were there in 1993?

Category panels compressed and diffused

All “active” humor shows in 1992 are shown, with panels ranging in size dependant on their amount of favoring.

By “entering” a panel, you’re able to watch a clip or an episode of the content

Content related to the chosen title is featured in the margins, so you’re easily allowed to explore new content

Jump to a specific decade

Again, scroll between different years to see what content was aired

In 1993, “Fleksnes” is the most popular show, and is therefore featured on a larger panel than “Fredrikssons fabrikk”

User testing through

User testing withfocus group

For the prototyping testing phase, I used my available resources within AHO and NRK. I wrote and published an article titled “Hvordan tilgjengeliggjøre NRKs fjernsynsarkiv?” and included the clickable prototype within the article for the readers to try out. This created a lot of

engagement, both relevant and irrelevant, within the comments section of the article at NRKbeta. All in all 72 comments was registered, all in different depth of the prototype, but most were helpful in one way or another. This became an effective and useful way of user testing.

Another resource I drew on was the feedback group I’ve been part of through this semester. Together we clicked through the prototype and noted down weak and strong aspects of the platform. By doing this kind of user testing, I was in a bigger capacity able to influence the

discussion in order to talk about relevant aspects of the prototype. Maybe applying a similar approach to the written article on NRKbeta would help keeping the discussion on point.

All comments printed out on Relevant comments highlighted

Comments sorted by category

29 sheets á A4 by category

and clustered

All 72 comments were printed out on A4 sheets. With a text size of 10 points, this resulted in 29 pages of text. In order to syntesize the comments, I applied four categories of comments. Comments that said something specificly about the prototype, i.e. “This is confusing…”. Comments that said something about what relevant or related feature they wanted, i.e. “Why don’t you rather…”. Comments that only talked about searching for specific titles and the need for adding correct metadata on the

titles, i.e. “I want to search for specific titles…”. And lastly, comments which said “I want this unrelated feature…”. The categories were then clustered together to see the amount of them compared. As one can see to the right, a lot of people were missing related features. The yellow and pink categories are not directly related to the direction the platform is moving – hence, I’ve chosen to leave them as they are for now and not evaluate them for the second iteration of the prototype – the final prototype.

“This is confusing”

“Why don’t you rather…?”

“I want to search for specific titles”

“I want to this unrelated feature”

“It looks messy and reminds me of word clouds that was “the shit” a few years ago. These are not practical in the translation to other devices such as smart phones”

“Why are the tiles distributed the way they are?”

“Cool project – I’m about half-way through a lifetime, so now I can relive half a life again”

“I don’t understand the order of the tiles – why is “Helse” hidden away in the corner, while “Humor” is in the middle of the screen?”

“I like the timeline, but not the fact that the content is sorted by genre for every year”

“Maybe “Musikk” deserves a larger tile than “Religion”, but isn’t that just NRK pointing the user in a direction?”

“I want everything presented as an online store; a list view where I can keep scrolling and not press a “Next” button, which I may result in doing a number of times”

“I’d prefer something like other streaming services or library systmes look like”

“The prototype reminds me of Windows 10 – it looks fancy, but may not be all that user friendly”

“All text is in capital letters, which makes it harder for me to scan and read the information”

“Using arbitrary sizes and placements of elements, margins and good usage of the surface would be better”

“I’d like to be able to see everything that was available from 1960 and simply streame everything chronologically as a queue”

“Does this content change, or will I have to see the same content every time I browse through the timeline?”

“Why are some tiles larger than others? Is it more interesting, more content or something else?”

“I hope you don’t create a service that is hard to browse through and maintain – a service needs to work for all platforms”

“If I enter a specific year, I want to be presented with a random selection of everything that aired that year, and that the selection is diffeent for every time I enter it”

“Aestheticly this is good, but I believe that effectiveness and usability is more important”

“I don’t understand why some tiles are bigger than others – are they “funnier” than other tiles? Or is there more content to browse through in a bigger tile?”

“I’m unsure if air date is an important criteria for people to find the titles they are looking for”

“People may go all like “I remember this show that used to air on sundays…” – weekday can actually be an importand criteria”

“I’m having hard to believe that a critically amount of the users would be interested in what month something aired”

“Why differ from other streaming services? For most people, the “most used” and common is easiest to use”

“I want to be able to see what has been published recently in the archive – this should be visible for a week or something”

“Why do I have to choose decade on the top line, and year on the bottom line?”

“Font size is too small on the smallest text”

“What happens if the amount of titles surpasses the area you have to work with? Do you scroll vertically down to uncover more content?”

“If you’re going for a word cloud, go all in – if I pick “Drama”, then I want to be presented with “Kjærlighet”, “Krig”, “Tenåring” on the next level”

“I hope you’re offering a platform that makes it possible to find the weirdest, quirkiest content in the bottom of the archive – without searching for the specific title”

“I want my search results presented to me as a list view, maybe sorted by air date”

“For people to find the tile with “Nyheter” would take more time than if it was sorted alphabetically or some other logical order”

“If you hover over a picture, could it show you a GIF of the content?”

“Over 50% of the users are on mobile platforms, so the service needs to work there”

“As an eager user you certainly will need buttons for year and categories – good”

“For an archive, the end goal should be that all content has they same pobability of being discovered”

“I want a way of narrowing down my search – conscious exploring. I may not always know what I’m looking for, but I want to be presented to results and an focused, easy and logical manner”

“Don’t be afraid to add, add and add categories, just as long as they’re presented to the user in an orderly fashion”

“For someone who’s interested in “Natur”, the air date may not be important at all – just present him with content about eagles, mountains and fishing or whatever”

“I want to be able to choose several categories, and also to leave some categories out of the result”

“I want the possibility to not be presented to content for kids. Shows for teenagers maybe, but not kids”

“What about categorizing by actor like IMDB does it?”

“I want to be able to choose an interval, add search words, choose category and so on…”

“I want to be shown where I was before I went into humor – a way to easy go back to “Alle programmer” and so on”

“I want to be able to sort by year, alphabetical order, number of views or duration”

Based on the feedback from the users, the first iteration of the prototype was not all too intuitive or user friendly. In the second iteration I’ve used the synthesis of the feedback trying to meet the needs of the users.

The aspect of the timeline is still a factor in the concept, but now also reserving an area in the screen all the time for unconscious discovery – meeting the needs of the explorer.

Second iteration

TV Direkte-TV Kategorier TV-guide ArkivetMitt innhold Søk

200019701960 20101980 19901974

FRA DETTE ÅRET

Norsk finale med Jahn Teigen, Dizzie Tunes, Gr… Beskrivelse Beskrivelse BeskrivelseMelodi Gand Prix 1974Tittel Tittel Tittel

The NRK television archive is an important piece of norwegian history. It’s a part of our cultural heritage – our populærkulturarv. This aspect should be respected in a digital platform presenting the television archive. Hence distributing the online productions along a timeline. As you move from one end of the timeline to the other, you also move through history and are presented with titles from the specific eras.


200019701960 20101980 1990

FRA DETTE ÅRET

Norsk-svensk humorserieBeskrivelse Beskrivelse BeskrivelseFredrikssons fabrikkTittel Tittel Tittel

In order to design for the explorer, which is our target user, the lower half of the screen is always reserved for unconscious discovery. Where the upper half is focused on conscious dicovery where you have some saying in what is happeining, on the lower half you are basically presented with random titles through norwegian television history.


200019701960 20101980 1990

FRA DETTE ÅRET

Beskrivelse Beskrivelse Beskrivelse BeskrivelseTittel Tittel Tittel Tittel

Vitenskap

Musikk

Nyheter

Dokumentar

Film

Humor

Sport

Natur

Kultur

Barn

Livsstil

Drama

Alle programmer

Underholdning

However, random is not always what you want, hence the possibility to filtrate down your selection. The NRK media player already have a lot of categories, but some of the archived content is more challenging to place within the existing categories. Hence my design choice to add more granulated categories – bot main and sub categories.


200019701960 20101980 19901986

FRA DETTE ÅRET

Serie av og med Tramteatret. Her møter vi blant…Beskrivelse Beskrivelse BeskrivelsePelle Parafins BøljebandTittel Tittel Tittel

When choosing one or more categories, you will be presented

to a more narrowed down selection of archived content –

you will be able to focus your search. In this instance, the user

has chosen to be presented to productions in the category of

childrens shows.


200019701960 20101980 19901986

FRA DETTE ÅRET

Serie av og med Tramteatret. Her møter vi blant…Beskrivelse Beskrivelse BeskrivelsePelle Parafins BøljebandTittel Tittel Tittel

When choosing one or more categories, you will be presented

to a more narrowed down selection of archived content –

you will be able to focus your search. In this instance, the user

has chosen to be presented to productions in the category of

childrens shows.


15. sep. 1990 · Fredrikssons fabrikk: "Inspektøren" 1:7 Til seriens hjemmesideFREDRIKSSONS FABRIKK

If the user wants to look more into a production, he can do that. You can browse throught the material across broadcasting years, streaming a whole series if that’s what he wants. Also, if the user is in need of more information, he can visit the productions main page of tv.nrk.no, that already exists within the NRK system.


15. sep. 1990 · Fredrikssons fabrikk: "Inspektøren" 1:7 Til seriens hjemmesideFREDRIKSSONS FABRIKK

Sesong 1992

Sesong 1990

Sesong 1993

Fredrikssons fabrikk: “Inspektøren”1:7 15.09.1990

Fredrikssons fabrikk: “Brudekjolen”2:7 22.09.1990

Fredrikssons fabrikk: “Høyt blodtrykk”3:7 29.09.1990

Fredrikssons fabrikk: “En vanskelig alder”4:7 06.10.1990

Fredrikssons fabrikk: “Haute Couture”5:7 13.10.1990

Fredrikssons fabrikk: “Nymalt”6:7 20.10.1990

Fredrikssons fabrikk: “O jul med din glede”7:7 29.12.1990

The user can browse through the content that exists within the production, possibly streaming episode after episode – continuing exploring the depths of the archive production by production.

The final interface design should be taken for what it is – a proposal that is not pixel perfect. However, what I hope to accomplish with the proposal is a source for inspiration for further work with the archive and for NRK and its employees to atart considering the archive in their daily work life.

With the engagement level that showed itself in the nRKbeta article, there is obviously an interest within the norwegian population to get access to the television archive through a digital interface. It’s a need pull that needs to be answered with an offering. Also, considering the quote to the right from the comments section of the article, which adresses the concept

more than it adresses the prototype itself, shows that people have a lot of feelings and memories towards the archive – it’s a small piece of their life and their own history. And this is also something that differs the NRK television archive from for example Netflix – you’re more emotionally invested in the archive.

There is still a lot of work left to be done with the NRK archive, one of them being the awareness of the archive. Even though it’s accessible, not many people is aware of it actually being accessible. Hence, not only does the digital platform be up and running, there is also an awareness campaign on the orizon of the archive, but that is for future work.

Reflections

my life, so now I can actuallyrelive half a lifetime”

“I’m about halfway through

Education

Erik Haugen Murvold NRK Filmarkiv Rapport 3