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It's time to get serious about the radio user experience

Posted on Friday, February 3rd, 2012 at 9:02 am. #

As someone who’s had DAB in his car for many years now, I know from personal experience that DAB already delivers a robust signal – from London to Merseyside, Yorkshire to Swansea.

It’s great that DAB Digital Radio is now installed in more new cars than ever before. That’s a whole lot of additional choice for drivers who consume 20% of Britain’s radio while on the road. Michael McIntyre apparently bought a new car to listen to Absolute 80s: and although we’re not all as rich/stupid as Michael, there’s a real appetite for DAB in-car from listeners.

Car manufacturers should be congratulated for including DAB as standard in an ever-growing set of models. The latest CAP/SMMT data says that in Q4/2011, 20.1% of new cars came with DAB fitted as standard: up from 7.7% a year ago; and as that figure increases, so should the second-hand market, too. The new PURE Highway is a really good option to retro-fit DAB into second-hand cars, too: a lovely device with decent reception.

But if the user-interface of in-car DAB is anything like the DAB user interface that’s pre-installed in the new VW Golf, I worry. Notable when using it (try the video above): it’s the first car radio I’ve ever seen with scrollbars. A touch-screen interface for drivers is fraught with difficulty when used on the move. The decision to tune-in by multiplex (and even then to put stations in SID order) is disappointing and against the way ‘normal people’ work. And the delays between pressing a button and something happening is frustrating, too.

Surfing the web, downloading apps, and storing contact details was always possible on a Nokia smartphone. But the Apple iPhone was a large success not because of the technology it used, but the user experience.

Sky/DirecTV/FoxTel really cares about the user experience to their TV platform. Apple really cares about the user experience to phones and computers. The BBC spends oodles of money on their website’s user experience, tweaking and improving it. Walk into a PieFace in Australia, or a Pret A Manger in the UK, and it’s clear that retailers really care about the user experience in their stores.

Martin, who filmed the above, tells me that this car radio was set on FM when he got into the car. That’s probably not a surprise.

In the radio industry, we should care more about radio’s user experience too. How can we do better here?

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5 comments

R Freeman
commenting at February 3rd, 2012 at 11:32 am

Sigh. If only the DAB reception in Chiswick was robust :-(

Ash
commenting at February 3rd, 2012 at 12:52 pm

Where in Chiswick exactly are you Robert? I drive though the outskirts of Chiswick (Gunnersbury) on my commute to work and suffer no loss of reception in my car.

Quentin Howard
commenting at February 3rd, 2012 at 10:59 pm

It could be a particular German enigma (er, apologies) for this tendency to select by multiplex and may relate to the status and influence of ARD public service networks which broadcast on their own multiplexes.
In contrast, the chipset that became the original Pure Evoke 1 was a blank canvas, and four of us spent a great deal of time working out the User Interface (two very clever guys from Ensigma, Nick Piggott and me). Up to that point DAB UIs had been pretty clumsy and engineer-oriented – some tuned by mux, others tuned by frequency (no, really!).
One of the key decisions I am proud to have influenced was performing an initial scan to create a list of all stations available and to ignore the concept of the multiplex entirely. (One day I ought to write up all the other ideas we implemented which are all but standard on most DAB receivers.)
The “out-of-the-box experience” is critical for any consumer electronics device in creating a strong first impression. If the punter isn’t impressed after 10 minutes, you’ve lost them. So it is surprising 10 years after the Pure Evoke 1 that companies still get it so wrong.

Martin Steers
commenting at February 4th, 2012 at 10:25 am

Its such a shame with that user experience, I sometimes struggle with my Pure Highway, but was happy as anything when I got it for Christmas.

However in the case of this car there should be no excuse for bad user experience, surely all we can do is engage with car manufacturers to make sure that user experience is on their list.. Other then that I am not sure what we can do..

M

David Board
commenting at February 4th, 2012 at 6:02 pm

I used to own a Golf, with this radio (indeed, it is the standard company car for Global Radio), and I totally agree that trying to tune into a DAB station was incredibly frustrating and downright dangerous when on the move.

On a positive note, the speakers were of very good quality, and once you were tuned in the reception from the built-in DAB was very good, which made for a superb listening experience.

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