Inspiration

TV interfaces are often designed at a desk, but people use them from across a room with a remote. RemoteLab explores how teams can test those experiences with realistic tasks and see where viewers hesitate.

What it does

RemoteLab pairs a browser-based moderator dashboard with a native Kotlin TV prototype. Moderators create tasks and success criteria, then watch a participant navigate a sample streaming interface. The TV app sends D-pad, Select, and Back events to a local FastAPI service backed by SQLite. A participant or moderator can mark each task complete or stuck, and the dashboard keeps the session history.

RemoteLab records actions and human-marked outcomes; it does not automatically judge whether an interface is usable.

How it was built

The web dashboard uses React and TypeScript. The local API uses Python, FastAPI, and SQLite. The TV client is built with Kotlin for Android TV and is designed to connect to the API over the same local network. The bundled Northstar prototype and demo test plan make it possible to try the workflow without a cloud account.

Challenges and what I learned

The main design challenge is making navigation understandable from TV viewing distance while keeping D-pad focus predictable. The main technical challenge is connecting a TV client and moderator dashboard through one local API and keeping the remote-event timeline useful during a live session.

I verified the web build and API flows. The Kotlin app still needs an Android build and Fire TV device or emulator test; the development environment did not have the required Java and Android SDK toolchain.