Benjamin Clark

I bought a TiVo over Valentine’s Day weekend, and now that it has been a few weeks, I felt it was important to note a few of the usability merits of the device.First and foremost, I have to admit that I was (and still am) completely caught off guard by the incredible usability of the device. Everyone has heard the celebrity testimonials and read various user testimonials on various blogs and tech review sites, but in so many other instances those opinions should be taken with a grain of salt. Not so with TiVo — TiVo, much like the Apple Macintosh, “just works.”

Setup was so easy I was worried that I had missed a step. There are three fairly large instruction manuals: one for hardware setup, one for software configuration, and another for the actual use of TiVo. When a new technology device includes manuals, it means one of two possible things. One, the technology device is so complicated that it needs many pages of instructions in order to successfully use it; or two, that the makers of the device felt it was important for the user to understand what was going on. TiVo is definitely the latter of the two, because even though I read the installation manuals cover to cover before taking the TiVo device out of its box, it truly wasn’t necessary. The hardware setup is plug and play, and the rest is a step-by-step “guide” (or wizard) that walks a user through selecting hardware configurations, favorite channels, modem setup, and so forth.

Actually using TiVo is so Mac-like in its attention to usability. When you’re watching live TV, you can push pause to stop the video for up to 30 minutes, rewind up to the point where you started watching that channel (up to 30 minutes back), and browse a program guide just like users of digital cable or satellite. TiVo decides to record “suggestions” which are based on your viewing preferences. Creating Season Passes — a recording of every new (or rerun) episode of a particular show, no matter time or channel — or Wishlists — recordings based on keyword, title, or any relevant field — are as easy as one-two-three. I’m trying to stay far away from sayings like that, but I have yet to hear from anyone who has had problems with TiVo’s usability.

I could go on and on about how great TiVo is, how usable it is, and how everyone should get one. However, I feel that the important part about pointing out TiVo’s usability is that the TiVo device itself would have never succeeded in the consumer market if they had not made it for “dummies.” If people are intimidated by setting the clock on a VCR, then the designers of a digital video recorder must take into consideration the shortcomings of VCR programming, overcome them, and design the DVR to have a playful, cartoon-like image — otherwise nobody will see the need for it. In fact, that is still TiVo’s main problem: they’re creating the market, essentially, and are converting users one by one, hoping to survive on word of mouth. The only way for a strategy like that to succeed is to have the technology device’s usability — not technology (because computer & hardware geeks have been doing digital video recording for years now) — be something to shout from the rooftops. I feel that TiVo has succeeded in at least finding the one major problem haunting most consumer technology — great technology, poor usability — and has overcome it in great form.

Now for the obvious statement: everyone, go buy a TiVo!