Archive:10-foot user interface

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XBMC Media Center (PM3.HD skin) home screen user interface, showing an example of a 10-foot user interface design

A 10-foot user interface (also sometimes referred to as "10 foot UI" or "10-foot experience") is a software GUI (graphical user interface) designed for display on a large television (or similar sized screen) with interaction using a regular television-style remote control.

"10 foot" refers to the fact that the GUI interface's elements—i.e. menus, buttons, text fonts, and so on—are theoretically large enough to easily read at a distance of Template:Convert from the display (which in this context is normally a large-screen television). To avoid distractions and to be more clear, 10 foot UIs also tend to be very simple and usually only have the minimum core buttons.

Typical examples of 10-foot user interfaces are media center software applications such as Boxee, XBMC Media Center MythTV, Windows Media Center and Front Row interfaces.

Overview

Common setting for the 10-foot user interface is a home theater or living room with surround sound speaker setup. The distance between viewer and TV varies, but is typically 10-feet with a 32" or larger big-screen television display.

The "10 foot" is used to differentiate the GUI style from those used on desktop computer screens, which typically assume the user's eyes are less than two feet from the display. The 10-foot GUI is almost always designed to be operated by a hand-held remote control. The 10-foot user interface has extra large buttons with menu fonts that are easily read and navigated.

This difference in distance has a huge impact on the interface design compared to typical desktop computer interaction when the user is sitting at a desk with a computer monitor, and using a mouse and keyboard (or perhaps a joystick device for computer games) which is sometimes referred to as a "2-foot user interface".

Common design guidelines

Here are a few design guidelines which should be considered when designing a 10-foot user interface compared to a 2-foot user interface.

  • Installation - The 10-foot experience places the display across the room from the user, and therefore anything that requires the user to physically interact with the interface and forces the user to get up and cross the room should be avoided.
  • User input - Support for a standard remote, which is the generally preferred input device for a 10-foot GUI, alternatively if the GUI is for a video game console then make certain the user can control the menus via the primary game input device.
  • Display - Regardless of what the video output device is, at a range of 10 feet it is very important that all fonts and UI graphics are sized large enough for comfortable readability, (also note that anti-aliased fonts will generally offer better readability).
  • Size of UI elements - Avoid single-pixel thick horizontal lines or static UI elements with single-pixel detail as older televisions and low-resolution displays may simply not display such fine detail, and content will flicker if running on an interlaced display mode since a single row of pixels will be visible only half the time.

Software and devices

Examples of a few common and popular 10-foot user interfaces are:

Devices

Standalone software

Media center operating systems

See also

References

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External links

Template:GUI widgets Template:Window managers Template:Home theater PC (application software)