Portal Design Overview

When designing a service portal there are two important things to keep in mind:

TV screen

While navigating on the TV screen, most users use a remote control with possibilities to navigate in four directions only (up, down, left and right). Try to design for a simple and straight-forward navigation that can be easily understood even by users not used to computers.

Remember also that not only are TV screens different from monitors, they also behave differently from one another. Therefore, test every step of developing a service portal on a variety of TV screens and not only on a monitor, to make sure that the colors displayed are the intended ones, that the information is clear and available and that the total perception of the service portal is satisfying.

Performance

In general, thin client systems have limited memory and processor resources. Make sure that you take this into consideration when designing the service portal. Small pages and fast feedback will greatly improve the user-perceived perfomance.