Q&A: Wongeun Jeon, Alticast

Wongeun Jeon, head of the media experience unit at Alticast, talks about the company’s Dynamic UI and personalised TV

What is Alticast’s Dynamic UI and what does it enable service providers to do?
Today’s viewers are demanding their viewing experiences become increasingly more personalised, while allowing for the quick and easy discovery of content they want to watch.

Alticast’s Dynamic UI™ gives operators the tools they need to provide this level of personalisation to their customers. An adaptive, agile and intelligent user interface, our Dynamic UI enables operators to go beyond simple content recommendations by personalising the entire viewing experience based on user behavior patterns and content preference.

Beyond content recommendations based on usage, what types of personalisation of the UI might a service provider implement?
Personalised service is usually thought of as personalised content recommendation. Alticast’s Dynamic UI manages the pay TV service through the subscriber’s service usage patterns and content preference. It takes into consideration viewing times, browsing patterns, purchase habits, channel searching, VOD watching, etc. It also looks at metadata of content purchased, genres normally watched, types of channels most frequently viewed and price range of purchased content. The compiled data is then used to generate individualised UI adaptations; thus, allowing operators to personalize the UX through menu configurations, content recommendations and the screen’s overall look and feel. The end-user can then decide to watch either the operator default UI or their own personalised UI.

For example, consider two viewers who usually watch movies. One viewer generally makes a selection after watching a trailer while the other checks social ratings and reviews. The system will present personalized UIs and movie recommendations to each user based on their respective behavior patterns when choosing a movie.

Sports fans are given multi-view screen features as well as game stats and information (i.e. scores and player profiles) on their favourite player or sports team. Binge watchers are presented with UIs that filter search menus per genre, country the show is produced or originated in, actor(s) in the show, as well as a list of episodes per season, which will appear on one side of the screen.
Traditionally, different UI components are developed individually. Dynamic UI provides templates for operators to deploy the UI flawlessly and dynamically, reducing time-to-market. This is imperative in an industry where media trends are changing at an accelerated pace.

Dynamic UI is enhanced by Alticast’s UX virtualisation solution Apex™. Apex allows all of the intelligent, active features of the Dynamic UI to be applied to low-cost and low computational power (less than 750DMIPS) legacy devices without any technical constraints caused by CPU performance, to deliver a sophisticated and graphic-rich UI.

What are the challenges in applying user behaviour data to the creation of personalised UIs and how are these resolved?
The biggest challenge in applying user behaviour data is that it requires an advanced data analytics system to comprehensively analyse users’ behaviours, tastes and preferences.
Dynamic UI is integrated with Alticast’s machine learning data platform, Argus™, for accurately profiling users. Based on the analysis results, Argus segments and categorises the users into target groups to develop and transmit the proper UI sets.

How can the service provider’s customers benefit from this type of personalisation of the UI?
As viewing behaviour is observed and accumulated, the UI reacts and optimises based upon the habits and usage patterns of the subscriber. The collected data generates and offers a personalised UI, as well as a default operator UI, to the end-user who can then choose the UI to which they are more attracted, further enhancing the customised experience.

Additionally, subscribers can benefit from quicker and easier content discovery and service navigation based on user habits and data recognition. This, in turn, creates increased satisfaction and loyalty towards the service they are receiving.

From the service provider’s perspective, what opportunities are there for making additional revenue from this type of personalisation?
With Alticast’s Dynamic UI, operators are able to take personalisation to another level by offering UI and content recommendations that are custom-made for the individual user rather than for the operator’s entire subscription base. Since a UI template is automatically generated through the system, time-to-market is significantly decreased, allowing for immediate customer satisfaction.
Personalisation and compelling UIs stand to become the key differentiator between an operator’s success or failure. Through the use of Alticast’s Dynamic UI, operators have a way to answer their subscribers’ demands for greater personalisation, less searching and more time enjoying their favourite shows. This ultimately will reduce churn and help operators stand out from the barrage of competition in today’s marketplace.

This Q&A is sponsored content