Designing for DVD

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Designing for DVD
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Designing DVD
I recently watched the Batman Begins DVD and
quite enjoyed the movie, despite the fact that I
usually dont like superhero tales. But the
DVDs menus were another matter. They sucked.
Sucked like no user interface has sucked since
the late 1990s, when many websites sucked so bad
we had to have a website called Web Pages That
Suck to poke fun at them.(http//www.cognitivefri
ction.net/archives/2006/11/18/batman-begins-badly-
poor-usability-of-dvd-menus/)
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Designing DVD
Designers of DVDs have failed to profit from the
lessons of previous media Computer software,
Internet web pages, and even WAP phones. As a
result, the DVD menu structure is getting more
and more baroque, less and less usable, less
pleasurable, less effective. It is time to take
DVD design as seriously as we do web design. The
field needs some discipline some attention to the
User Experience, and some standardization of
control and display formats. The first movies
on DVDs were done well, in part because designers
hadn't yet discovered the medium, so things were
left simple. But now, visual designers have
somehow discovered the medium, and off we go,
revisiting the horrors of the past. It seems that
every time a new medium appears, the everyday
users are forced to endure the worst sins of the
previous media. (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox -
Donald A. Norman)
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Designing DVD
I recently watched the Batman Begins DVD and
quite enjoyed the movie, despite the fact that I
usually dont like superhero tales. But the
DVDs menus were another matter. They sucked.
Sucked like no user interface has sucked since
the late 1990s, when many websites sucked so bad
we had to have a website called Web Pages That
Suck to poke fun at them.(http//www.cognitivefri
ction.net/archives/2006/11/18/batman-begins-badly-
poor-usability-of-dvd-menus/)
Think about some bad DVD menu experiences? What
design guidelines can you suggest?
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Designing DVD menus
Anime DVD menu usability example study (.doc)
Guidelines for designing usable DVD Menus (.pdf)
Comprehensive coverage of 44 guidelines