Don´t be narrow-minded, widen your view!
Why widescreens cannot be ignored anymore in usability testing.
Facts: Statistics from W3Schools and Net Market Share show that since January of this year, the majority of online computer users have chosen a widescreen resolution over a traditional monitor format. Still the favorite resolution for web design and usability testing remains the traditional 1024X768 pixels. This previously common resolution showed a rapid decline in the last year and only remains the resolution of choice to about 20%-27% of online computer users in the beginning of 2010. It is expected that widescreen formats will almost completely take over within only 2 years.
How widescreens affect usability:
Widescreens are principally different from normal screens as they have a different width to height ratio; 4:3 versus the widescreen 16:9 ratio.
In practice this means that content viewed on a widescreen has to be designed specifically to avoid stretching out the content, leaving a big empty space on the sides or having the page break at the wrong place. Eye tracking research with a 24” Tobii T60XL widescreen eye tracker has proven that widescreen resolutions have an effect on how participants view for example websites or full size PDF documents such as wide 2-page spread brochures. The Full HD resolution (1900X1200) of the T60XL can display all content in the appropriate resolution and aspect ratio. Another important point is: widescreens usually have a lower dot pitch, meaning that things will look smaller on them compared to ´old´ monitors that have a higher dot pitch, the only way to simulate this and find usability or User Experience problems with this is to use a screen that has a comparable dot pitch.
HD content & Multitasking
Trends such as YouTube HD content and HD Blu-ray movies are really pushing the use of HD monitors in all sectors including laptops that are moving towards high resolution HD widescreens. Also the productivity advantages of a widescreen monitor by allowing multitasking with multiple windows open at a time is being adopted by more and more consumers.
Professional computer users have been using multitasking on widescreens for years already to improve their productivity by having multiple windows open, showing more information in applications such as Microsoft Office (more columns in an Excel sheet or 2-page spreads in Word documents) or by having more workspace in graphic design programs to use additional tools and to keep a better overview. Apple promotes widescreen use by only delivering widescreen monitor with all their computer products, any usability research into Apple computer software would require a widescreen to simulate their actual provided user experience. Widescreen computing is now strongly pushed by all manufacturers and HD television is already adopted by a big majority of consumers (almost 2/3 of US consumers in early 2010), making widescreen even more set to be the new standard in both TV and computer use.
Examples of widescreen use in a professional workspace (source: newegg.com)
TV
With the Full HD resolution of the 24” Tobii T60XL widescreen eye tracker, it is also possible to study the effects of interaction on HD TV content. Intel already says the future is TV shaped, and Google is now teaming up with Sony to deliver Google TV, to deliver the internet to the TV and as a competitor to the already popular Apple TV for streaming content. There is a general increasing interest in connected TV´s for consumers. This trend may lead the TV into a new way of communicating with the web for consumers and therefore may cause several new usability issues with accessing all this content through widescreens monitors.
Gaming
Gaming is another widespread use of widescreens. The gaming industry is a very large and still fast growing industry with many players on the market. Gaming consoles such as Sony´s Playstation 3 or Microsoft´s Xbox use their own operating systems as a platform to allow user to surf the internet, listen to music, watch videos and buy content from their own online stores. User Experience or Usability Testing of gaming console and their interfaces already form a part of usability research offerings, see for example this study about the user experience and usability of Microsoft´s Xbox 360.
Sony Playstation Store
To learn more about the Tobii T60XL widescreen eye tracker please visit the Tobii website.
