Report from Strategy Analytics: Smart TVs Need To Smarten Up Their Act

written by: Richard Kastelein

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Published on Thursday, 07 June 2012 08:27

Many Smart TV owners are frustrated because of slow user interfaces and complex registration procedures, according to the latest research published by the Strategy Analytics Digital Home Observatory (DHO) service. The report, "Slow Connected TV Interfaces Inhibit App Store Exploration," finds that users feel the performance of smart or connected TVs is much slower than they expected, particularly when compared to smartphones and tablets. Users are also unwilling to explore smart TV apps stores, partly because of the TV's slow performance, and also because they feel that many of the apps available are of no interest.

"Connected TV owners clearly need some form of motivation to begin the apps discovery and download process as they are not using this feature regularly," says Caroline Park, Analyst and the report's author. "Improvements in the speed of the smart TV interface and overall usability would encourage users to take part in searching for and discovering new apps."

The research identified other barriers to discovery of smart TV apps. The categorization of apps is often unnecessarily complicated, and owners report that they come across apps which are not even usable on the smart TV.

"All in all, smart TV manufacturers have a long way to go before they match the fast, intuitive user experience now familiar to owners of smartphones and tablets," Park concludes.

The research was based on six in-depth observational interviews with smart TV owners combined with a larger scale survey of 210 smart TV owners in the US in April 2012.