Optimizing sites for TV

Google has now officially launched Google TV. The purpose is to provide users with a remote interface but with all the major web functions in tact. This means you can access a site on the Google TV in the same way you do on a desktop. To achieve this, the webmasters will be required to optimize their sites to make it compatible for proper viewing in Google TV.

The term ‘Optimizing sites for TV’ needs to be explained at least for those who may not be familiar with this concept. The phrase simply means a user should be able to comfortably sit in a favorite couch to watch his/her site on television. The text has to be sufficiently bold so that it can be viewed from an ideal distance sitting in the couch without straining one’s eyes. The site navigation is to be made possible through button arrows on the remote instead of the standard mouse/touchpad usage.

Inasmuch as mobile phones make your site accessible to persons on the move, Google TV makes your site viewable to people relaxing on the couch. Google TV is a platform that synthesizes your current TV programming with the web. It is indeed exciting to know that your favorite web and your favorite television program are made available at once from the comfort of your sofa.

This is technically possible as Google TV has a fully functioning built-in web browser to enable users to easily visit your site from their television. Now that this has become feasible you may obviously want to give your users a richer and more enhanced TV viewing experience – what is now familiarly referred to as the “10-foot UI” (user interface). They will be several feet away from the screen and use a remote with a keyboard and a pointing device and not a mouse.

Webmasters wanting to obtain a general idea about their site’s appearance on television should know that mere appearance alone is no proof that the site can be comfortably navigated by TV viewers who use a remote rather than a mouse. However, there can still be some techniques to know how the site would look on television.

On a large monitor, adjust your window size to measure 1920 x 1080 and in a browser, visit your site at full screen. You can then zoom the browser to 1.5 times the usual size. This zooming can be achieved in varied ways with different keyboards. Then move back three times the distance between yourself and the monitor and check out your site. If you want to see your site with the real thing, then go ahead and buy the Google TV enabled devices now widely available.

It is certainly not compulsory for every site to be optimized - at least not immediately, as the light of Google TV is yet to shadow the desktop version of websites. The webmaster must deal with typography that includes the selection of fonts, sizes, color, letter-spacing, special effects etc. Choosing the right colors is very important when optimizing a site for viewing on Google TV. If you are less experienced, then you can opt for simple image sliders, rotators which are, as it is, available on the net.

But if you are aware of coding, then you may as well go for a complete flash or jQuery site. Use AJAX wherever needed - mainly while changing the tabs. This will mean the user need not meddle too often on the remote control, as the page will be updated easily by just moving the dock on the remote.

 

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