Reach More Players: Smart Design for Streaming Media Devices

REACH MORE PLAYERSSMART DESIGN FOR STREAMING MEDIA DEVICES

Reach Engage Earn

PETER HEINRICHDEVELOPER EVANGELIST, AMAZON

WHY STREAMING

MEDIA DEVICES?

Streaming media device sales

growth is in the double digits

year-over-year, with no

slowdown in sight.

Since January 2015 through

today, Fire TV has held the top

sales position…

So in an rapidly growing

industry, Fire TV is out in front.

Prime Day 2016:

• 2.5x sales of Fire TV devices

over 2015

• Fire TV Stick was the best-

selling Amazon device

DESIGNING FOR THE

10' EXPERIENCE

You can target your games made for mobile, tablet and desktop for the living room.

You will have to design your user interface differently for people sitting 10 feet away from the display.

The goal of 10-foot user interface design is to make the user's interaction as simple and efficient as possible, with as few button presses as possible while still having an intuitive layout, in terms of accomplishing user goals—what is often called user-centered design.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10-foot_user_interface

NAVIGATION SHOULD BE

REMOTE-FRIENDLY• Focus on the core navigation buttons • Standard Android navigation for Menu,

Home and Back buttons.• Reserve media buttons for playback only.

ANTICIPATE USER NAVIGATION FLOWNever let the player get stuck or backtrack through navigation groups.

Chances are that your existing landscape designs will work perfectly as is assuming it supports:

• Button states for selected, disabled, etc.• Easy navigation via the Amazon Fire TV Remote• Clearly indicates how to move from screen to

screen

WORKING WITH TV

RESOLUTIONS

BUILD FOR ONE RESOLUTION

SETTING UPRESOURCE CONFIGURATIONS

If you design your app to run on platforms other than Amazon Fire TV, such as tablets, you can create different layouts and drawablesfor each platform, and store them in subdirectories of res/named for various platform and device configurations.

For more info, check out the Android developer resources at http://bit.ly/droid-screens

ORIENTATION

UNDERSTANDING HOW OVERSCAN WORKS

TV COLOR GAMUT

RESPONSIVE GAME

DESIGN

Handling different resolutions is all about understanding aspect ratios. Design for 16:9, 8:5 and 4:3 along with UI that dynamically adjusts for either ratio.

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Fire Device ResolutionsSUPPORTED RESOLUTIONSAll current Fire devices are at 16:9 or 8:5 aspect ratios

Fire TV & Fire TV Stick

1920 X 1080(16:9)Fire HD 6, 8 & 10

1280 X 800(8:5)

Fire

1280 X 600(CLOSE TO 16:9)

Evolution Of The Console ControllerGAME INPUT EXAMPLEhttp://gizmodo.com/5110650/the-evolution-of-the-console-controller

Console Standards

With a lot of planning and consideration, it’s possible to have games work with a single input mechanic across different devices.

DETECT THE PLATFORMAnd always display the correct input controls based on the platform the game is being played on.

CONNECTION &

CONTINUITY

These notifications will appear for a short time and disappear without interaction.

Informational NotificationsNOTIFICATION EXAMPLE

Amazon

Fling bit.ly/amazonfling

DIALDIscovery And Launch

WHERE DO WE GO

FROM HERE?

WHAT’S NEXT?First steps:

• Side-load your game to Fire TV and play!

• Test remote and controller compatibility

• Look for overscan/color issues

Plan for the future:

• The 10’ experience & user-centered design

• Responsive design (single codebase)

• Aspect ratios, not resolutions

• Multiple input methods

• Amazon Fling & DIAL support

How did we do? http://bit.ly/devdaysurvey

Learn more: http://developer.amazon.com/FireTV

Follow us: @PeterDotGames

developer.amazon.com/blog