Web 2.0 TV Sites and Application

Few tips for those who are developing Web 2.0 TV sites and Web 2.0 Applications

1. Get users to the content as quickly and easily as possible (content is king).
2. Do not interrupt users when they are watching TV site or TV Application by adds
3. TV Sites and application screens are wider and colors look different
4. Text must be readable from a distance and sound is viable interface element.
5. Avoid highly saturated and very bright colors
6. Make UI elements slightly larger like the sections of the screen over-sized, Add more padding to your elements, Make buttons and other click targets larger.
7. Use wide screen Web 2.0 Design for 1280x720 and 1920x1080 resolutions.
8. Use pure white (#FFFFFF) sparingly. Pure whites cause vibrancy or image ghosting in TV displays. Instead use #F1F1F1 or 240/240/240 (RGB).
9. Bright whites, reds, and oranges cause particularly bad distortion.
10. Be conscious of various display modes that TVs may have. These include Standard, Vivid, Cinema/Theater, Game, etc. Be sure to test your webpages in all these modes.
11. Be conscious of using large spanning gradients, it may result in banding if not properly tested.
12. Test your website or application on lower quality displays which may have poor gamma and color settings.
13. Limit each paragraph to no more than 90 words, Keep line length at about 5–7 words per line, Never go shorter than 3 or longer than 12.
14. Remember that light text on a dark background is slightly easier to read on TV (compared to dark text on a light background).
15. Avoid adding continuous-playing, Flash-based banner or sidebar ads on a page that includes a video. If you cannot avoid such ads, unload or stop them when a user starts watching the primary video or goes to full screen.
16. To ensure a smooth video-watching experience, make sure your content uses only one instance of the media player at a time. For example, make sure that your primary content and the ads are not running two parallel streams of the media player.
17. Be conscious of system memory, check availability and limitations when running Flash. Consume only what is necessary and test for memory leaks.
18. Do other applications respond poorly when the application is running?
19. If you click, does something happen immediately, or is there a delay?
20. Does the window flicker or turn blank during long operations?