Electronic
TV Guide
Redesigning IPTV navigation for smartphones, tablets, and personal computers — making content discovery feel natural.
Context
A guide built for another era
Electronic Program Guides (EPGs) were designed for television sets. As demand for accessing TV guides on personal devices grew — smartphones, tablets, personal computers — the traditional grid-based interface began to show its limitations.
The project focused on redesigning the EPG experience for small screens, making timeline navigation, content discovery, and program information feel native to the devices people were actually using.
The existing grid-based EPG — designed for TV, not for touch
Problem
Too much information, too little control
Despite the increasing demand for EPGs on personal devices, users faced significant challenges navigating and accessing content efficiently. A heuristic evaluation identified six core usability failures.
No clear feedback on the user's position within the timeline — users couldn't tell where they were or how much of a programme had aired.
Users lacked meaningful control when navigating within the timeline, relying entirely on arrow buttons ill-suited to touch interaction.
Inconsistent feedback and interaction patterns across different screen sizes and device types created an unpredictable experience.
No mechanism to prevent users from accidentally navigating away from the current timeline position — with no easy way back.
Users were required to recall their position in the timeline without visual cues, placing unnecessary load on working memory.
The interface was cluttered with unnecessary elements, making it difficult to scan for relevant content quickly.
User Testing
What users showed us
Usability testing with early design prototypes produced four key findings that reshaped the design direction.
"Users expressed a clear preference for swiping to move back and forth in the timeline. It felt more natural on the phone screen compared to pressing arrows."
User testing finding
- Timeline comprehension: Users took longer than expected to understand how much of the currently playing programme was left — a direct signal that the progress indicator needed to be clearer and more prominent.
- Swipe preference: Participants strongly preferred swiping to navigate the timeline over tapping directional arrows — a gesture that felt native to mobile and tablet devices.
- Expansion panel: Users wanted to retain the expansion panel from the existing solution for accessing additional programme details, rather than being taken to a separate screen.
- Missing "Now" button: After exploring past or future content, users consistently looked for a quick way back to live programming. This feature was absent from both tested designs — but users expressed a strong need for it.
Two early prototypes tested with users — both informed the final direction
Key Design Decisions
Four solutions, one coherent experience
Each design decision traces directly to a finding from user testing — nothing was added speculatively.
01
Swipe over arrows
Replaced directional arrow buttons with swipe gestures for timeline navigation. Swiping felt natural on touch screens and reduced the number of taps needed to browse content.
02
Unified tile sizing
Replaced proportional programme tiles (where tile width reflected duration) with uniform sizing. This made titles and air times consistently readable, regardless of programme length. Selecting a time shows all programmes within that window — for example, 6 o'clock displays content from 5:55 to 6:30.
03
"Now" button
Added a persistent "Now" button to the timeline, allowing users to return to live programming with a single tap after browsing past or future content. Directly addressed the most commonly expressed missing feature from testing.
04
Progress line
Added a visual progress indicator across programme listings so users can immediately identify what is currently airing without reading timestamps — reducing cognitive load during browsing.
05
Expansion panel
Tapping a programme tile reveals minimal information with a short description and quick-action buttons: play, start over, record, set reminder. Users can expand further for the full description in a modal — keeping the initial view uncluttered.
06
Landscape adaptation
In landscape orientation, limited screen real estate meant the expansion panel was replaced with a modal preview — maintaining access to programme details without sacrificing the guide layout.
Final design: swipe navigation, progress line, "Now" button, and expansion panel
Outcome
A guide that feels native
The redesign addressed each of the six heuristic failures identified at the start, and every feature shipped traced directly to something users asked for during testing.
Swipe navigation reduced the interaction cost of browsing the timeline. The progress line and "Now" button eliminated the most common points of disorientation. The expansion panel preserved detail without cluttering the guide. The result was a significantly improved usability score and measurably higher user satisfaction across all tested devices.
Future Features
What comes next
Four feature areas were identified as the natural next phase — each grounded in user feedback gathered during this project.
Customisable preferences
Allow users to select favourite channels, preferred genres, and time slots — surfacing relevant content without manual browsing.
Search and filter
Find programmes by genre, channel, time, or keyword — identified as a potential separate project in scope.
Personalised recommendations
Algorithm-based suggestions built from viewing habits, reducing the need to browse cold across all channels.
Reminders and recording
Seamless integration for setting reminders and scheduling recordings — already added to the library as a next step.
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