Broadband meets Broadcast at AIGA Group

The London Experience Design forum recently hosted Julia Whitney of the Boston-based television producer WGBH. Whitney discussed the development of a broadband educational website that accompanied a television documentary on 20th century economic history, "Commanding Heights", for which the production team recently won a BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards in the Online Learning Category.

Whitney described the project as an attempt to explore 'next generation documentary', integrating traditional linear TV narrative with information to support the narrative. The site features an innovative table of contents for video footage that reveals itself as the video plays. Whitney noted maintaining the integrity of video is a challenge, since random access to video clips can chop-up video segments and interfere with the 'dramatic arc' of the story segment.

At the same time, online video access enables users to see far more video than they could when watching the television series, leading Whitney to describe the TV series as resembling an 'executive summary' of the far vaster website materials. The website has the benefit of continuous netcast availability, which has led to audience growth over time. The range of materials is enormous, with users able to approach a topic thematically, chronologically or geographically, and to explore the inter-relationships between these different aspects.

Ultimately, such richness can present usability issues, Whitney said, such as too many windows open at once. Whitney noted that as an educational resource for high school and university students, the presentation of materials needed to be academically sound, but easy enough for educators to present to students. One challenge concerned the use of colour to annotate the thematically. Academic advisors wanted many categories to be represented to ensure accuracy, while designers favoured fewer categories to ensure clarity. Between dealing with content integrity and design issues, Whitney feels her team did not focus as much attention as it could on educator's needs. Educators told WGBH they felt much of the material in the path-breaking site wasn't obvious to them, prompting WGBH to offer workshops to draw attention to the rich offerings of the site.

The television producer is now developing software tools to measure how the site is being used, and assess what content students find valuable.

Michael Andrews
Freelance user-centred design researcher

Associated Link: WGBH: Commanding Heights

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