‘Clock’ and progress bars

[Robinlmp]

Believe me, I know all about the time, cost, quality triangle.

I’m a developer and also an architect with 20 years experience so I’ve got a pretty good handle on coding, design and project management and delivery.

I’m really glad we finally have an indication of the current time (the dot). But this is a long way from an ideal design in my opinion.

From what @tmm1 said, my suggestion was tested so I don’t think this is a time / implementation issue.

The point of providing feedback is to help make it better. Just accepting the status quo doesn’t get anyone anywhere.

[Robinlmp]

@ricm916

I personally feel that the suggested scrollback would be confusing in appearance

Around this specific point, what is it you feel would be confusing? The UI already shows a bit of ‘history’. And almost every other TV guide I’ve used allows a certain amount of historical info.

In my mind, it’s a question of how far back to show. Currently it is set to be quite aggressively cropped to the nearest 30 mins or so. I’m just saying it should extend to show the start of all shows currently displayed on the guide.

A good analogy is the timeline when playing a video on a computer or phone. You can see the start, you can see the end and you can see a marker showing how far along the video you are. Eg:

What a timeline view like above doesn’t and shouldn’t ever do is obscure the start or end.

Now a guide is a bit more complex because there are lots of timelines going on with different start and end points. The ends are fine, we already are happy with the inconvenience (?!) of scrolling to the right to see what’s on later, or having to scroll (less happily) a very long way to the right to see what’s on tomorrow or at the weekend (and then the long scroll back again).

Being against the idea of scrolling is one thing and seems like a debate long since decided. We live in a world of UIs that require lots of scrolling.

Being able to scroll just a little way to the left to see the starts of the currently showing shows is a bit of a no brainer in the context of the above.

Once you have that, the progress bars for each show make sense spatially, and they would all align at the current time, so then what’s the point of them?

[racameron]

@Robinlmp

Being able to scroll just a little way to the left to see the starts of the currently showing shows is a bit of a no brainer in the context of the above.

And if I want to move my selection left to highlight the channel cell, so I can bring up the On Later page for that channel, how would I get there? Would I have to scroll through the past times in the guide that I don't care about so I can get to a screen to see what's airing later?

Your paradigm breaks the current interaction model.

[Robinlmp]

@racameron

And if I want to move my selection left to highlight the channel cell, so I can bring up the On Later page for that channel, how would I get there? Would I have to scroll through the past times in the guide that I don't care about so I can get to a screen to see what's airing later?

Your paradigm breaks the current interaction model.

I don't know which device you use? Currently this isn't something that exists for me.

On iOS or iPadOS I can tap on the channel icons and it brings up the interface you describe. On the AppleTV, the channel titles / icons are not selectable. It jumps from navigating around the guide blocks to the channel collections and then to the main menu on the left.

So I'm puzzled a bit by your point.

However, if its only available to you currently on the far left of the guide, wouldn't it be better to have access to it wherever you are in browsing the guide? The long press / show preview screen that you get when tapping on a future show would be a great place to provide a tap / click gesture on the channel icon with the option to see what's on later. That would be available anywhere in the guide timeline rather than just at the left hand end (I'm going based on your description here because it doesn't work like that for me). This is just one potential solution. Surely there are many others and maybe one would work across all devices.

[racameron]

@Robinlmp

On the AppleTV, the channel titles / icons are not selectable. It jumps from navigating around the guide blocks to the channel collections and then to the main menu on the left.

If you can see the progress bars, then your version has the ability to select the channel logo/number cell, which brings up an On Later page filtered to that particular channel.

@Robinlmp

wouldn't it be better to have access to it wherever you are in browsing the guide?

The current paradigm is press Back/Menu, which will take you to the beginning of the timeline; then you can simply navigate left to select the channel logo. If I need to display a program's detail before getting to that On Later page, that's essentially the same number of button presses. (And I'm not certain I believe a channel-centric action should be included on a show-level dialog.)

@Robinlmp

Surely there are many others and maybe one would work across all devices.

There can never be a single way to work across all devices, as the phone/tablet has a touch/direct interface that can't translate directly to a remote-driven interface.

However, this is starting to get off-topic. If you'd like to campaign for past guide data (which may not exist depending upon how recently your EPG updated, as past entries are purged when new data is downloaded), then you may want to do so in its own thread.

[Robinlmp]

@racameron

However, this is starting to get off-topic. If you'd like to campaign for past guide data (which may not exist depending upon how recently your EPG updated, as past entries are purged when new data is downloaded), then you may want to do so in its own thread.

I started this thread to discuss problems with the UI related to the new clock. That original post includes this as part of suggested improvements. No need for another thread.

As for the selecting the channel icons, the way it was described it sounded like it was an old feature that would be broken. Not one I’d come across before.

The issue about old guide data, it’s not really a problem. Channels knows when current shows started. That’s all that’s needed. I don’t need to see guide data for something that ended an hour ago. I just need to see when the currently playing shows started.

It’s a shame that things have ended up this way. Three years or so waiting for a clock on the guide and then it comes and it’s a dot which is just really rather disappointing to me. And that it’s been brought in at the same time as another feature (personally, that I don’t want) that makes it harder to fix.

Adding flashy features for by-channel on later info is of substantially lower priority to me than getting the guide working well which is really kind of the most important UI for live TV in my opinion.

Get the basics right. Then add fancy features as long as they enhance, or at least not harm the basics.

[racameron]

@Robinlmp

The issue about old guide data, it’s not really a problem. Channels knows when current shows started. That’s all that’s needed.

Long-press on the currently airing program to bring up its detail window; that page includes the start time and duration of the program.

@Robinlmp

Three years or so waiting for a clock on the guide and then it comes and it’s a dot which is just really rather disappointing to me.

The guide has a clock now, too. It is in addition to the current time "dot". (The Apple TV version always had the dot, but it is new to the iOS/iPadOS version.) The iOS/iPadOS versions never had a clock, because the system always displays the time in the system bar at the top of the device.

@Robinlmp

Adding flashy features for by-channel on later info is of substantially lower priority to me than getting the guide working well which is really kind of the most important UI for live TV in my opinion.

Having a display of upcoming program by channel has been a long-standing request. While it may not be seen as a priority by you, history and several threads here would indicate that it was a priority for other users. The revamp to the On Later system (which was previously minimal, and seen on the Search page previously) has been enhanced, first from the DVR web UI, and then to the clients. If you don't like the feature, don't use it.

[Robinlmp]

@racameron

It is in addition to the current time "dot". (The Apple TV version always had the dot, but it is new to the iOS/iPadOS version.)

Just goes to show how lacking it is that I'd never noticed it on the TV and we use Channels exclusively for live TV.

I saw the "NEW: A clock has been added to the Guide" in the what's new notes on the App Store on my phone and iPad. It took me a while to work out that the dot is the clock.

[maddox]

The dot is not “the clock”

Our versions share the same release notes. This is how it’s always been. This note was for the tvos version. We obviously wouldn’t add a clock on iOS as there is a clock in the status bar.

This topic has been talked to death and is going nowhere. There’s no sense in being pedantic just to add more text to the Internet. I’m closing it up.