The user experience for a potential public broadcasting IP delivered network is one of the projects for the User Experience Research Partnership announced by the BBC Thursday.
The initiative brings BBC Research and Development together with the University of Bath, The University of Dundee, UCL (University College London), Newcastle University, The University of Nottingham and Swansea University, which have all agreed to commit to the project for at least the next four years.
It is anticipated the partnership will run a number of large scale pilots and prototypes that will explore potential new forms of content and interaction in the multiplatform world. The results will then be shared with the industry.
As well as the user experience for IP broadcasting, the partnership will also explore new ways of interaction, moving beyond gesture control, and into the display of digital content within more natural interfaces.
Matthew Postgate, Controller, BBC R&D, said: “This is an exciting partnership that allows us to explore how audiences could engage with new types of content in the future, and how we can better make it available to them. By bringing together a world class team of experts from academia and BBC R&D, we aim to stimulate innovation that not only benefits the BBC and our audiences, but also the wider industry.”
Professor Stanton Fraser, The University of Bath, added: “The University of Bath brings a strong base of interdisciplinary Human Computer Interaction research to this partnership. We are excited about sharing expertise and university researchers will be based both at Bath and at MediaCityUK from next month studying new content around children’s experience”.
The BBC has a history of industry and academic collaboration that includes the Audio Research Partnership as a strategic partnership with the UCL.
