Identifying Interaction Barriers in the Use of Remote Controls

The constitution of a culture mediated by the new media of Interactive Digital Television (iDTV) will depend directly on the artifact for physical interaction available to the user. This work presents the results of an experiment whose objective was to observe users’ interactions with television using the remote control, in a scenario of diversity of access to technology. Based on in loco observation of barriers related to the use of remote control in the television setting, we identified project requirements that should be considered in the design of new physical artifacts of interaction with iDTV.