Anime DVD menu usability

Introduction

Menus on anime DVDs, while better than in the past, still appear to be designed with little consideration for common usage patterns.

This document examines anime DVD menus from a usability perspective and suggests a ‘best practice’ template for the main menu. The main menu is most important because placing options on the main menu makes them instantly available.

Contents

• 1 Assumed situation
• 2 Usage analysis
• 3 Domain analysis
• 4 Suggested menu template
• 5 Evaluation
• 6 Summary

1 • Assumed situation

For the purposes of this analysis we assume a ‘typical’ anime TV series DVD with 3 or more episodes.

The DVD has two audio tracks (Japanese and English), two subtitle tracks (full translation and signs-and-songs only), some unspecified extras, and trailers.

Most of the results, and the principles described, also apply to other types of anime disc.

2 • Usage analysis

An important step in creating a good design is to consider how people will use the menu – work out what they are looking to achieve most frequently and make that task as easy as possible.

I have no research budget, so there weren’t any user studies; all the information here comes from logical reasoning. This is not ideal.

2.1 User tasks

2.2 Task frequencies

Users in this table describes the people who are likely to use a feature. Frequency describes how often those people are likely to use it.

2.3 Task importance

Using the analysis of task frequency, we can list tasks in order of importance. Importance depends on the proportion of users who need the task, and the frequency for those users.

A quality design makes the most important tasks as easy as possible.

This table lists most important tasks first.

* Whether task L1 is this important depends on whether English audio is the default for the disc and, if so, whether it is clear from the initial screen that English audio is selected

Because L6 is so unimportant, it may be excluded from further consideration; the incredibly small proportion of users who wish this option can select it using the DVD player’s subtitle button anyway. Having it on the menu is not a requirement.

3 • Domain analysis

DVD menus work in a particular manner. This needs be considered in order to make sure that the most important tasks are easy for the user.

There are also some general areas of the task where usability can be considered and improved.

3.1 Menu access delays

Menus sometimes appear after a delay (for animation). Users are probably prepared to put up with a small delay if it ‘looks cool’, but this delay should not be excessive.

• Keep the initial main menu access delay reasonable (< 3 seconds); if it is longer it should be skippable with chapter next
• Ensure that this delay only occurs the first time you access the menu, not when you return to it after selecting an option or after the show
• Keep access to each required submenu very quick (< 1 second)
• Since each menu transition takes a little time, avoid nesting menus too deeply for common tasks. Even if there is no animation, the transition may still take time depending on the player; and it takes a moment for the user to reread the screen and spot the new options that are available
• Pay particular attention to submenus that are required for important tasks

Counterexample: In Pioneer’s Sailor Moon S, both the main menu and the language selection menu take ages to appear, and you can’t skip the delay.

Counterexample: In ADV’s Gasaraki, subtitle options are nested in a submenu of the Language menu, so choosing both language and subtitle options requires 4 menu transitions (main > lang, lang > sub, sub > lang, lang > main) instead of 2.

3.2 Control

DVD menus are controlled using two methods. Users with standalone DVD players generally control menus using four directional arrow buttons and a Select button. Users on PCs do have access to this scheme, but generally control menus by clicking on screen ‘hotspots’.

I am not aware of reliable statistics for the proportion of people using PCs to watch DVDs, but a total guess is that it might be around 5%; not high, but worth considering.

Lessons from button control

Button control imposes a number of restrictions on the visual layout of options.

• It must be clear which direction button does what; in other words, lay out options so that they are clearly separated in the four cardinal directions. Do not lay out options in another shape (for example a triangle). If a user has to guess which direction button will take them to a particular option, your design has failed
• Users require more effort to reach distant options. Effort can be measured by counting the number of button presses
• For maximum ease of use, menus should provide only a single row or single column of options where possible – this makes it absolutely clear which button does what
• Controls should ‘wrap’ so that if you press the Down button from the lowest option, you reach the top option (this reduces effort for users who work it out)

Counterexample: In Bandai’s Escaflowne, the menu structure is laid out on a pentagon. It is unclear which direction you have to press to get where, and whether you have to use different buttons (e.g. switch from up/down to left/right) when you get part of the way around the shape.

Lessons from pointer control

Pointer control introduces more constraints.

• Every selectable item must have a hotspot
• Hotspots must be positioned in the logical place (i.e. covering the text of an option) which should be easily visible
• Hotspots should cover large areas to faciliate easy clicking
• Because mice, pens etc. are efficient input devices, distance across the screen is less significant. Effort can be measured by counting the number of clicks

3.3 Selection feedback

Both methods of control provide feedback on selections using some sort of indicator around the selected item (rendered as a DVD subpicture).

• Feedback must be clear and unambiguous as to which item is selected
• The best way to achieve this is to make the selection display cover or surround the option text, rather than having a pointer off to one side (This is especially important for mouse users as they are used to seeing ‘mouseover’ effects on something that they can click, and may become disturbed if the feedback is elsewhere, perhaps feeling they must move the mouse to cover the feedback image.)
• Be especially careful if there are only two options – in that situation, simply making the selected option a different colour may not be adequate (as both options are ‘different’ from each other, whichever is selected)
• If colour is used to indicate the selected option, the colour chosen should be a strong contrast against the background. Colourblindness should also be taken into account (a quick-and-dirty check is to convert your menu image to greyscale and check the selection is still easy to distinguish). If possible, the selection colour should be brighter than the surroundings, rather than darker, because this makes it stand out more

Counterexample: In Bandai’s Fancy Lala volume 1, try selecting an episode from the main menu. This is confusing because a small * appears to the side of the selected number – if you select episode 2, it reads ‘1   2 * 3   4   5’. Is episode 2 or 3 selected? They fixed this error in volume 2, where the selection * appears directly over the selected episode.

Counterexample: In at least one volume of Pioneer’s Trigun, some menus indicate a selected item by making the text red instead of black. Red text is also used elsewhere in the graphics, and it isn't clear whether the red or black text is selected.

3.4 Visual design

Good visual design can improve, and poor visual design hinder, menu usability.

• Animation should not appear around menu options or, if it does, should be clearly separated (high contrast) so that menu items remain easy to read
• It should not be possible to confuse animation with menu selection feedback
• When showing status, such as a currently selected language option, make sure it’s easy to tell which is selected and which isn’t – preferably without making users go through a process of elimination (‘well, there must only be one selected, so it’s the one that doesn't match the other two...’)
• Menu items should be clearly labelled and initially visible. You shouldn’t need to move over an item to find out what it does
• Menu items should be laid out logically, so that when looking at any menu item, the next or previous item is obvious

Counterexample: In CPM’s Now and Then, Here and There, go to any submenu. The ‘main menu’ option is difficult to see at first, because it’s up at the top right whereas the menu options run down the left.

4 • Suggested menu template

Considering the domain requirements, it’s possible to suggest an example template which satisfies the basic requirement of good menu design – making the most important tasks easy.

This is not the only good menu structure; there are many possible solutions, and this is only one of them.

4.1 Goals

The goal of this design is to make the most important tasks (P1, P3, P2, L1, and L2) as easy as possible. This is achieved by placing all those tasks on the main menu, thus keeping menu-changing to a minimum (none). Less important tasks are pushed to other screens.

4.2 Design diagram

This is a diagram, not a picture of an actual menu.

Legend

• Grey boxes indicate each available option for moving onto/selecting. (They are not the same as mouse hotspots, which should probably be a bit larger where space allows)
• The red box is the initially selected option
• Lilac lines indicate movement using directional buttons
• The black triangle represents a visual indicator of the currently-selected language

Functionality

Key features

• Language options on front screen – easy access to the most common option needed before playback
• Currently-selected language displayed immediately with clear indicator – reassures most users that they do not need to change language option
• Japanese language displays nearest to initial cursor position (this presumes that English will be default) because people who want English don’t need to change. If Japanese is default, reverse the two options
• Default selection on episode 1 – same effect as Play All, reduces button presses needed to access language choices and other episodes
• Episodes available directly – easy to begin playback from any episode, will not mysteriously return to menu after one ep
• Scene select less prominent – rarely needed feature, still easily available if desired

Minimising

There are quite a few options on this menu. For visual reasons, it might be desirable to reduce the count in some cases.

The following options could go:

• Scene select – rarely useful feature and can be accessed by choosing an episode then pressing chapter next/forward on player remote
• Other language options – rarely useful feature and can be accessed via player subtitle/audio buttons; alternatively (especially if there are unusual language options) could be placed on Extras menu
• Extras – if you don’t have any decent extras, don’t bother pretending you do, and then you won’t need this option

Also, the Play All button could be removed, since it does the same as the episode 1 button. However, that option should remain more prominent than others. Here are some solutions:

• Use a combination Play All / Episode 1 button:
  
  (Alternatively, Play All and 1 could be on the same line, but still linked by a button surround.)
• Remove the Play All button, but make the 1 button larger and more prominent

These have the advantage of helping the user understand that selecting an episode will not return to the menu once the episode plays, or take you to a scene select screen.

5 • Evaluation

We measure the quality of this menu by comparing the effort required for important tasks with menus from a typical disc.

I’ve chosen ADV’s Princess Nine (volume 6) for comparison because it happened to be close at hand; it is a quality disc with good menus and demonstrates current good practice. ADV in general do a good job with their menus and some releases are even better than Princess Nine. But there is still room for improvement.

The example scenarios are in order of probability (most likely first), based on the same analysis done earlier.

One of the most likely cases (a dub viewer wants to watch the entire disc) is already handled correctly in the Princess Nine menu. The other likely scenarios are all dealt with better using the menu template shown in this report.

6 • Summary

Considering how people will use DVD menus can help us understand how to improve those menus. The lessons from this report could be applied to real anime DVDs.

Current anime DVD menus are particularly poor in the area of language selection (given that a significant proportion of viewers will reliably want to change language on almost every viewing).

6.1 Specific points

These are my own opinions about the most important individual points to take on board.

The most important factor is the method of language selection. A significant proportion of users need to either change, or verify, their language selection every time they play a disc. This means that language selection should be available on the same screen as the play button. It is not necessary to include full language selection options on that screen, only the two main ones.

Another issue is episode selection. Because many users do not always watch an entire disc at once, the task ‘play from episode 3 onwards’ is a common one and must not be obstructed. Many discs make this harder by requiring you to use a submenu (like Image’s Hyper Police) or even two levels of submenu (like Bandai’s Cowboy Bebop) in order to play the chosen episode. Some discs obstruct this even further by returning you to the menu after the chosen episode has finished, rather than letting you continue directly with the next episode.

In a related issue, language selection should not automatically begin playing the disc, even though this might seem like it saves effort. Again, this makes life significantly more difficult for people who do not watch an entire disc at once.

Discs should accept player defaults (i.e. if you set your player to Japanese it should default to Japanese w/ English subtitles). However there is little point doing this unless you also display language selection on the main menu; so many discs ignore the defaults that users will have to check, even if you get it right. Accepting defaults is not a general solution, because not all players allow these settings to be configured and not all users understand how to configure them.

Contact

Want to contact me about this? Please email quen at leafdigital dot com.