People at SIF: How to Make UX Smart

Many IT products may have similar specifications or technological features. However, every product feels different and you feel some products are built just for you. Why is that? Even with totally new advanced technologies, some products, such as Samsung Smart TVs, feel so much more personal and familiar. This is because of the superior user experience of the product.

For the second segment of the Samsung Electronics’ ‘Visual & Display’ interviews, we met up with Wooseok Hwang, the UX designer of Samsung Smart TVs. In this interview, he talks about the behind the scene stories of UX of Samsung Smart TVs, like we never heard before.

People use the term UX in many different fields and because the term is used so frequently, I think some people can find the term a bit too vague. As a Samsung Electronics UX designer, could you please tell us what is User Experience or UX?

Generally, it’s hard for people to define what UX or User Experience is, because it actually has to do with everything related to users’ emotion and the experience of the product. My job is not as technology-oriented as the display department, but it is rather about the functionality, practicality, efficiency and emotion of a product for the users. Samsung Electronics products are produced with top-notch technology and, sometimes, technology itself for users can be a little overwhelming.

As a UX developer, I try to make it as easy as possible for people to take advantage of each product’s amazing technology. Enriching the experience and creating great memories of the product for the users is the primary object of UX.

One of the most impressive features of the new Samsung Smart TVs was the motion sensors control, where you can control a TV with your gestures and without a remote controller. The concept of it sounds so futuristic and innovative. How did this become possible? What was your focus?

We understand that motion-sensor technology can be very new to a lot of people. Samsung Electronics is one of the pioneers in using this technology in a TV, even though the technology itself has been around for a couple of years now. As I mentioned before, my job is not so technology-oriented. My team’s job was to make sure the motion sensor technology made sense for people to use it. Therefore, our focus was not really about ‘what’ it is, but rather ‘why’ and ‘how’ we use it.

Often times, I’m inspired by my childhood memories to come up with a better way to enjoy TVs. For example, when I was a child, my family had a ‘rotary type’ TV in the living room. Whenever my dad wanted to change the volume of the TV a little bit, I needed to get out of the couch, walk all the way to the TV, change the volume, make sure he is satisfied with it, then walk all the way back to the couch! It is all in the past as a great family memory.

With the motion sensor control, people can browse through TVs like they are flipping a page of a book. These motions not only feel so natural to them, but they also bring some fun factor in controlling TVs.

However, as you can imagine, it takes more than a simple inspiration. We have also done intensive research on body languages and countless tests and experiments of its compatibility to TVs.

Using gesture could be considered as some body language. If you dig deeply, body language is a type of communication and communicating means expressing emotion and thoughts. I’m sure this was one of the many aspects you had to consider.

As people can see in the recent Samsung smart TVs, such as UHD or Curved OLED and Evolution kit, TV has transformed a lot in a short period of time; not only has its core function has improved significantly, but also its creative and various complimentary functions have come to play a significant role in its identity.

I consider this new generation of TVs as some sort of prototype of human-like TV. Nowadays, TV almost has ears, mouth and eyes; it can listen, speak and see. A TV has become something more than a means to watch something. Users can interact with their TV in various ways and interaction means sharing emotions.

Therefore, it is extremely necessary for us to develop a user experience and user interface that provides a pleasant and positive emotion. I believe we have been very successful in delivering our goal.  Not only are the gestures used to control Samsung Smart TV natural and intuitive, but they have also been nominated and made it to the finals in the UX design category at this year’s IDEA ceremony.

UX sounds like it needs to take so many different aspects of user side of the product into consideration. What kind of research did you have to do to make the best UX for Samsung TVs? Can you give us some examples?

Simply said, our job is to bring the most positive experience of a TV to the users. However, the process to achieving it is not as simple as it sounds, because we have to consider every aspect of people’s behavior. A recent trend for IT products is customization, it needs to be personal. Therefore, each product needs to be focused on individual use. However, since TV is a family oriented product, it needs to be easy for everyone in the family to use it; from a baby to a grandmother.

Also, because Samsung TVs are made for users around the world, they need to consider the cultural aspect as well. Every country and every area has a different culture and way of approaching and using their TV.  I will give you couple examples of how we considered all these aspects.

The gestures for the motions sensor function needs to be easy for everyone in the family. So the gesture had to be designed in a very natural and instinctual way, yet also having a correlation to their assigned function. For example, trying to browse the next page of the TV was designed with the motion of flipping a page in a magazine.

Users can also use ‘voice command’ on Samsung smart TVs. For this function, we researched peoples’ intonation and accent when they make voice commands. As you can imagine this is also different in every culture.

If you look at the content services for Smart TVs, they are made up of five categories. We did lots of intense research on how we were going to divide categories, because it needed to make sense universally. We did so much research on how people, individually and culturally, perceives contents and, also, how they categorize them.

However, it was also important for us to give each page an identity, because not only the division of the category had to make sense, but it also needed to make visual sense. Every aspects of design from grid and layout, icon to motion, had to be easy for people to understand, while visually appealing; the layout needed to be informative and the metaphor of the icon needed to be easy to catch.

Recently, the idea or the concept of a product being ‘smart’ has taken over the world. It is generally assumed that if it is an IT gadget, it needs to be smart. However, because of this recent phenomenon, it could get harder to differentiate, for example, Smartphones, PC/Laptop to TVs. What is your take on this?

There was a time when TVs used to be called the ‘dummy box’. However, nowadays, it is called ‘Smart TV’ and its getting smarter and smarter. What did you watch on TV last night? Do you flip through channels hoping to find something interesting? Internet and mobile devices have made it easier for us to watch what we want to watch. The main concern of the user is not about ‘where’ and ‘when’ we watch, but it is rather about ‘how’ and ‘what’ we watch. Therefore, Smart TV has put focus on recommending contents based on user’s preference.

Therefore, we need to put emphasis on ‘how’, ‘why’ and ‘what’ users view when they’re watching TV. The content and sources of content have diversified greatly over the years. First, one obvious trend that we have noticed is that screens are getting bigger. People can use their smartphones or computers to watch videos, but I believe it is still more fun to watch it on a bigger screen, which the TV offers.

Therefore, we needed to consider what it would be like for users to view the same content on a bigger screen. For example, one of the most popular interfaces is the thumbnail based interface. During the research, we noticed that on a bigger screen, users find it easier to select a thumbnail with a hand gesture than a remote controller. We believe that Samsung TV’s UX and UI have made the best out of the big screen.

We also tried to make every single element of the UX and UI design visually easy to understand. For example, we used color was in making the folders easily recognizable. For PC users, people prefer to organize their files in folders rather than laying out all the files on their home screen, because folders are easier to understand. However, when files pile up, people start to create folders inside a folder inside a folder, so it is can be difficult to know how deep the folders go, or what exactly is inside of them.

So for the TV, we decided to make this easier for people to realize where they are by assigning a color to a folder, which gets deeper and deeper depending on how far inside a folder you are. This makes it easier for people to understand their status or position within a folder.

People all over the world, such as our blog readers, have shown much interest to the ‘Evolution Kit’. It certainly brings a totally different aspect to a TV. What was the most difficult part of creating the ‘Evolution Kit’?

The Evolution Kit gets a lot of compliments on its sophisticated technology, enabling users to update their TVs so they get the added technological benefits of the most up-to-date technology. The Evolution Kit can upgrade your software and hardware whenever there is an update, so your TV stays current and relevant to new TVs. From the UX perspective, the main goal of the Evolution Kit is tied right into this updating. Even though there is a major update going on with your TV, we needed to make sure the change didn’t feel overwhelming for the users.

This means the non-technological aspect of the UX and UI needs to stay consistent and constant for the people. We don’t want users to have to learn how to use their TV every time there is a major update; we needed to provide a seamless transition between old and new. This is difficult, as you can imagine, because it needs to balance consistency, creativity and trendiness simultaneously. However, after intense research, discussion and trial and errors, we were able to achieve it.

For you this could be an obvious question, but I must ask. Why would people choose Samsung UX? What are you most proud about Samsung UX?

First, I think our philosophy is very advanced. As I  mentioned briefly, we approach TV like it’s a human being; the hardware is the body, the software is the brain, the UI is the personality, the design is the appearance, and the UX is the attractiveness. The communication between a TV and a person is not so much one way as it used to be, but rather it has become an interaction. Interaction is sharing and expressing emotion. We understand this, therefore, our approach is very detailed and focused on giving the most positive and personal experience to the users.

Second, in terms of the physicality of Samsung TV, it has a big screen. Our UX and UI have taken the full advantage of this fact. This big screen means everything is re-thought and designed but is still familiar and comfortable. It is not like we used the same platform of a PC or a smartphone and applied it to a TV. We thought of all the aspects of user experience on a big screen. I believe we are the one of the first in the industry to achieve this. Others can imitate, but we take full pride in being the pioneer.

Finally, TV’s core function is about viewing content, as I have briefly mentioned. Smart TVs have allowed content to come from many difference sources. One of the biggest strengths of Samsung TV, personally, is that it is compatible with most of the contents currently available. We have put many inputs on our TVs to allow a wide variety of content-viewing

It sounds like the UX team has done so much research and, therefore, added so many cool features on TV. Besides what you have mentioned already, could you tell us about other special things about Samsung TV UX?

First, Samsung smart TV can recommend contents of user’s taste at the right time. Image-oriented design has made selecting the contents instinctually easy. The clear and simple design has made it easier for people to focus on viewing the contents.

Second, people can control Samsung Smart TV contents via various inputs, such as voice gesture, touch remote control.

Third, we wanted people to truly enjoy its content experience more easily, therefore, that experience needed to continuously evolve. We believe we have achieved that through many ways, Evolution Kit was one of them.

Overall, we are confident that Samsung Smart TV will make your experience more valuable. So sit down, relax and enjoy!

*All functionality features, specifications and other product information provided in this document including, but not limited to, the benefits, design, pricing, components, performance, availability, and capabilities of the product are subject to change without notice or obligation.

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