Bringing The Ten Foot User Interface To The Web

The iPhone App model is successful because native applications make HTTP requests and custom render the results rather than just rendering HTML.

You need native applications in the living room because you need performance. You are competing with the XBox 360 and Sony PS3. An HTML web browser will not cut it.

Next up is input. Rendering HTML that works with mouse/keyboard, and multitouch, and remote/gamepad in the living room seems like it will have way too many compromises. Wordpress/WPTouch works because it focuses mainly on websites with content and not Apps in general.

Start backwards. There is a person sitting on a couch ten feet away from a display. His/her significant other is on the couch, too. What is this person holding in their hands? How is this input device communicating with the display? How does this display send network requests to a server?

1 foot = single active user. 10 feet = passive user, often multiple passive users.

THAT difference is a much bigger concept to work on than the UI...

I've worked in the TV UI space for a long time and have developed several HTML based apps for TV. Its a completely different experience navigating with a remote as opposed to a mouse. Something as simple as a select list can be a complete bear to navigate via a cloverleaf remote.

Heck even something as simple as scrolling a page with a remote is a complete nightmare.

As long as we are navigating with a cloverleaf (w/o something like a wiimote pointer) then web pages are going to work _extremely_ poorly on the TV. On that front I have yet to find wiimote or something like an iphone mouse that performs well on a TV. As much as a pointing device "works" on the Wii, you lose a whole magnitude of pointing precision with it and I've never seen anything else that's much better.

This is completely outside of the whole content model for TV apps is such as a passive one. Reading some web content on TV is nice, but we will not be ingesting normal web content via our TV on a regular basis, we'll do what we do now with the TV on and everyone around it working on their own laptop, iPad or Smart phone.

What works for a 3-foot interface may also work for a 10-foot interface. On a phone screen, it's all about clickable areas accessible via fingertip. On a 50-inch screen using a Wiimote-like device, it's all about clickable areas accessible via pointer. With a directional remote, it's all about the UI element highlighting. Maybe someone is using a touchscreen remote, which then creates a hybrid 3-foot/10-foot UI.

I'm not sure I understand what you're advocating, other than standardized user interactions. Does this framework apply to all websites, effectively bringing "the web to TV," or does this only apply to "apps?" (similar to iPhone/iPad apps)

"If my tv tells me I've won two free iPod nanos, it will get thrown out the window." This is some serious pie-in-the-sky thinking. If you're designing these wonderful apps with this wonderful ad structure, who's going to run ads on a platform that lets users just toss the ads out easily?

Assuming your not designing for television watchers, then the simple matter of the distance from the screen does become an intense source of changes in UI design.