Sure, it’s a hackneyed title for a post. But here at Cofactors, we love watching what’s happening with satellite radio. It’s pretty much occurring in plain sight, so doesn’t bear much comment in general (though this marketing site provides a good overview, for those who can see if. For those who can’t, contact us for a download). But what’s interesting to us is how an incredibly old medium is being shaken up, and how the new instantiation of radio is increasing demands on our newest digital-human interfaces. Having created and tested the architecture for one of the industry’s two leading sites, Sirius Satellite Radio, we have a little experience at this sort of thing. And the bottom line is that there’s a unique convergence of phenomena right now - where a new technology is actually coinciding with real, untapped demand. At least at this point. Regular radio is in a bit of trouble. Satellite radio is fairly cheap and delivers an impressive experience as well as content. The only catch, aside from marketing, is making sure that it’s as easy for people to use as regular radio is. And that’s where both usability and communicating usability come in. People need to understand the service itself, the payment plans AND the different form factors available to them. When that’s accomplished, they find they can have a far superior experience to most terrestrial radio stations - at least prior to those stations converting to digital formats and streaming them out. But getting that done requires serious (pun intended) attention to detail in terms of balancing education with selling. So far, Satellite is definitely winning this game as well. Primarily because, we believe, it has at least initially a greater feel for and experience with the way consumers and digital interfaces interact. And because it did not have an installed base of hardware on which it could depend.

By the same token, terrestrial radio holding companies have a giant shift in terms of both operations and usability to consider. Bad luck for them is that their business model right now depends on accepted interaction patterns, embedded after 80 years, which are not the interactions relevant to the web and portable digital units. Tuning an FM dial in a car or small radio just is not the same thing as searching through a list of channel options. The article above and the NYTimes are right to compare it to the influence of cable on network TV.

Which, speaking of, a Catalyst partner just re-experienced in a particularly odd way. Moving into a new apartment in Brooklyn, he was told that free cable TV was included. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for. Although over 80 channels are, in fact, provided - there is no programming interface. So, you don’t know what is playing when, or how to find it. There is a “channel of channels,” but it has no content. To anyone used to either a cable or satellite programming guide, with all its information and sorting capabilities, this is nearly impossible to get used to. So, it’s a very weird example of what happens when you try to combine an analogue interface with a fundamentally digital product. And much like the dilemma facing terrestrial radio companies today. Fortunately, TiVo is still in business.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 15th, 2005 at 11:07 am and is filed under Usability, Usability Testing, Communicating Usability, Satellite Radio.