Evaluating Ubiquitous Media Usability Challenges: Content Transfer and Channel Switching Delays

As ubiquitous media is developing rapidly, new HCI challenges emerge. In this paper, we address usability issues related to the transfer of content between fixed and mobile devices, as well as channel switching delays on mobile devices. We first provide an extensive review of the field. We then evaluate four relatively novel approaches for initiating a transfer of video content from a mobile phone to a TV screen. Seen from a user’s point of view, familiarity and comfort are found to be important decision factors when selecting a preference among the proposed methods. Furthermore, we identify a threshold level above which people appear to be annoyed when switching between TV channels on a mobile device, and investigate factors that may influence the perceived acceptability of such delay.