OTT Question Time #12 – Is OTT UI / UX Now Fully Evolved?

VOD services all over the world are usually built using a toolkit of common features including content discovery and recommendation, personalisation tools (like recently watched, single sign-on and device synchronisation) and player controls (like live restart, forward ten seconds and subtitling / closed captions). In this episode of OTT Question Time we asked whether, with ubiquitous grid layouts and lots of familiar functionality across OTT products, the evolution of these user interfaces is now effectively complete. 

Together with Steve Forde, Director of Digital Products at ITV, Tom Williams, co-founder and CEO at Ostmodern and Fabian Birgfeld, Managing Director at W12 Studios, we discussed:

• The history and development of OTT user interfaces including YouTube, BBC iPlayer and Netflix
• Addressing the principal objectives of users (like finding content) and how related functionality can be improved
• The role of testing and personalisation in creating better interfaces and user experiences
• Input controls – touch, type, talk
• Whether the era of OTT UI experimentation is now truly over or will it make a return as new devices (like virtual reality, perhaps) come to market?
• And what, if any, new UI features users can expect to see over the coming months and years

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