I’m taking on a new personal project. I’d like to design a better television experience. Technologies surrounding this include things like DVRs, HDTVs, DVDs, and lots more, some software solutions are MythTV,
Freevo and others but that’s not what I’m out to create. I’m looking to do some anthropology on television watching habits, figure out some new ideas and then later report the findings so we could use that change an existing project or create a new project that fits a different vision.

A lot of the projects out there right now are “…by developers, for developers” [*], this isn’t what I’m interested in. I’m interested in two things, one is to figure out what the heck most people are doing in their living rooms so we can create something they want and the other is to an attempt to demonstrate a method of designing good software that can hopefully be reused in other Open Source projects.

I’ll talk more about reusing software design later, for now I’d like to ask your help… the lazy web, and you. I’m going to start my investigation with some questions to get an understanding of some people and how they watch TV. I’d like to investigate a number of those people further if I can. This is a probably going to be a pretty big undertaking since I’m just doing this on my own time, so be patient if I don’t get back to you right away. I’m already planning on observing a number of people I know while they watch TV, you can volunteer for this if you like (and are near the boston area please) and I’d love to take some of your time watching you watch TV but don’t feel it’s at all necessary. I think I’ll only get to talk with most people through email or maybe phone.

Here’s what I’d like from you

Copy and paste these questions into an email answering each one and sending it to me,bclark (at) redhat (dot) com

• What TV shows do you make time to watch?
• Sopranos – You watch completely alone so no one else can interrupt
• The Shield – You watch alone, but know friends are watching it at the same time, later that night or the next day you chat about it..
• What TV shows would you normally not admit you watch? (I won’t tell anyone else)
• Shows you are embarrassed to say you watch or only watch when someone else is in control
• I’ll admit that I got hooked into Sex and The City back when it was on but usually I don’t tell people that.
• Do you have a DVR?
• If yes, do you use it to record all of your shows?
• Which shows do you watch that you don’t record?
• Do you have a computer in the same room as your TV? Do you use it while you watch TV? If a laptop see next question…
• What do you do while you watch TV?
• Eat? Which meals? What do you watch while you eat? Do you watch TV when you’re not eating too?
• Use the computer? Do you do this during every show or do some get your undivided attention?
• Excercise?
• Anything else?
• Do you visit the web sites of TV shows you watch? If yes, which ones, why?
• Have you caught up on a TV serires recently? If so, how did you manage to catch up on missed episodes?

The Definition

The killerization of your living room

Every step along our process involves the word “killer” or derivitives of that. First we start with our definition, our goal. The “killerization” of your living room. How can we make the watching TV, sitting on your couch and overall living room experience ‘killer’. I’m not sure we’re done the defining stage yet, but next up in the ‘design process’ would be research stage, which is were you all come in. We all want to make our living room’s killer, now we just need some data to figure out how.