Our thinking

Last week I watched the election on my laptop to experience Social TV. The most interesting aspect was seeing how viewers’ ratings of the leaders changed throughout the debate. This week, I looked at the different ways in which websites or TV channels displayed viewers’ ratings to see which worked best.

Guardian’s Reaction tracker

The Guardian had a clear chart with a line for each of the leaders. However, it only updated once every minute. This wasn’t frequent enough for it to enhance the live viewing experience. When Gordon Brown told Nick Clegg to ‘Get real’ I wanted to know straight away what the viewers thought about it. But, by the time the chart updated the debate had moved on.

Sky TV’s bar chart

Sky TV’s bar chart tried to show the breadth of opinions. For example, they didn’t just show the average rating for Nick Clegg. Instead Sky showed how far the ratings from most people ranged for Nick Clegg. So, the more the ratings differed the taller the yellow bar would be. This added a different dimension to how the ratings were displayed. However, it was a little more complicated and harder to interpret than the Guardian’s simple line chart. Also, the bar didn’t seem to move that much and you had to look carefully to notice any movement.  Most of the time I wanted to look at the leaders themselves so I often missed changes in the ratings.

ITV’s Worm

I wrote about this last week. It showed whether viewers felt positively or negatively towards what the leaders were saying. A single line went up or down in reaction to what the leaders were saying. There were 2 great things about this. Firstly, the line moved instantly in reaction to what was being said, giving immediate reactions. Secondly, the scale was set just right so that when viewers liked/disliked a leader’s comments the line rose/dropped markedly, these made the changes look and feel more dramatic. Out of the 3 displays ITV’s Worm was the best to watch.

Viewer ratings can really add to the experience of watching a debate. I can see these becoming more common in Social TV. It’s important to consider the best way to display the ratings. They should grab the viewer’s attention by making changes noticeable and easy to interpret.

This ends a politically themed week here at Webcredible. See how we rated the websites of the UK political parties in a report we launched earlier this week.

Many people in the UK had a social TV experience tonight, watching the leaders debate while also commenting on facebook, twitter and chat rooms. Social TV is slowly getting more popular, especially at big events like this. I had my first social TV experience tonight. I had my laptop open on ITV’s website where there was a live video of the debate, a chat room, a facebook window, a live ‘Worm’ graph and instant polls.

Chat room & facebook

There was a live ITV chat room where viewers were giving instant reactions. It was interesting to see what other viewers thought of what the leaders said and to see a big range of viewer opinions. It was also good to see that most viewers didn’t stick to part lines and but gave genuine comments, criticising their favourite leader and complimenting the opposition where appropriate.

The ITV website also had a facebook window which showed comments made by facebook users. This had the potential to be more interesting than the public chat room – I was more interested in knowing the opinions of my friends than those of strangers.

However, the facebook window showed comments from any facebook user on the ITV website and any comments from my friends were lost amongst these. I’d have preferred a more personal experience within a smaller social group.

Worm

For me, the most captivating example of social TV came from the ‘Worm’. ITV added a live graph line, called a ‘Worm’, on top of a live video of the debate. This continuously showed how much a select group of 20 viewers felt positively or negatively towards what the leaders were saying (they were provided a special device to do this).

The ‘Worm’ was the easiest element of social TV to follow. Firstly, I didn’t need to look away from the leaders to know what other viewers thought. Secondly, I could understand how other people felt much faster by looking at the ‘Worm’ line than by reading through comments.

The ‘Worm’ concept could be improved. 20 users is very small sample size and a much larger sample would give a more reliable representation of public feelings. For example, an interface could be built into the website to allow all viewers give their feelings.

Live poll

Finally, ITV took polls on its website throughout the debate and showed the results changing from minute to minute. It was exciting to get an early view of what the major opinion polls would eventually show after the debate. It was also an effective way to get viewers to contribute to the social TV element – it made it very quick and easy to share your opinion.

Overall experience

Taking part in social TV added a new and exciting dimension to the viewing experience. It’ll be interesting to see how social TV develops as an increasing number of people watch TV while also browsing the Internet on their laptops, netbooks, iPads, mobile phones… I’d recommend trying out the social TV experience at the next leaders debate or big sporting event.