Paper Prototype User Study

Today Itamar, Sharon and Omri went out with a paper prototype to check-out some potential user responses.
Our prototype of Streetbeat is a cereal box:

This device emulates the experience of viewing a city-map with embedded microphone jacks. While letting users play with it, we purposefully did not mention the Android app.

We interviewed a total of 8 students/research-personnel at the IDC campus. Below is a summary of recurring comments and otherwise significant feedback regarding the user experience:

• The look & feel of the actual device is important as that will most likely have an effect on the degree to which people will approach it.
• About half of the participants understood roughly what to do.
• Some commented that they would feel "silly" standing next to this for a long while.
• A song list/local chart/"new entries" is a good addition, it should be part of the device (and not exclusively on an app)
• Being able to "take" the music from the device is a generally desired feature
• A "Share" or more communal feature should be added (like knowing who is the person that listens to the song being played, not just knowing where it's from)
• About half testified the experience was all-in-all fun

Negative parts of the experience:

• Finding only music you don't appreciate
• Just the musical experience has no added value from listening to music on a phone/player
• Two participants said the geographic part isn't really connected with the musical experience
• Not everybody carries around ear/head-phones all the time
• Jacks are outdated. There's newer, nicer technologies
• One participant commented that she prefers not to be "active" (she would like for the music to be played via speakers or something of the sort)

Some videotaped responses:

A few insights

Oren commented on our idea to include a touch screen below the map. 

• The screen below/beside the map is a turnoff. Screens are out, everybody use them, touch is everywhere - Wood or 3d printed map. As large as you can.
• LEDs for data feedback, and you can add 7-segment text display, like a ticker, to show the song name etc. 
• More statistics info - too technical and not poetic like the rest of the experience, but if you insist - it should be on the users mobile phone, like augmented reality above the map, I direct my phone to an area on the map and see the stats visualization on my little screen. That way, you do not need to bring the screens. But the stats is an overkill. Priority 4...
• Dive deeper into the flow details.
• How do I tag to an area, what if I'm between areas, how do you deal with GPS uncertainty, what feedback do I get for tagging, what incentive do I have to contribute.

We decided not to include touch screens for now. 

Comments on the Project from MS Representative

Feedback from Ruth, part of the design expo competition:

In a world where nearly everyone is listening to music on their smartphone, why not see what everybody is listening to? The StreetBeat is public art display that senses what music is played near it and visualizes this music for the benefit of passers-by. It allows anyone to leave his or her own mark by having his music visualized as well as exploring and experiencing new music, played by others. To experience such music, you don't even need a smartphone, just plug in a pair of headphones. This isn't to say you can't take this music home on your phone. Beyond these, StreetBeat also shows the musical DNA of its location, be it a street, a neighborhood, or a town square. This is done by integrating data by artist or genre to show and display what's trending and who's popular.Blog: http://streetbeat2.blogspot.co.il/

1. Getting the musical pulse of a place is great. I saw that you got enough feedback on feasibility and copyright issues, so I’m not going to get into that

I want to focus on the installation itself. I think you should explore it more.

2. How can you make it more inviting? More playful? What would make someone stop and actually listen? You are creating something dynamic and entertaining. Your project is not about utility – it’s about fun and voyeurism. Can you reflect that in your design?  What if you had to have physical contact to hear the music, to feel the music? Laurie Anderson had a brilliant installation called the headphone table - you put your elbows in 2 little dimples on the surface, cover your ears and then your body would become the speakers through your hollow bones and you could hear the music. It was a very powerful thing to experience, but the other powerful thing was to see other people doing it, and watch them. What is the performance aspect that you are creating with your installation? What do you want your users to feel? How would you like them to react?

Another aspect of an installation is what do you get from various distances – what is the experience of someone on the other side of the street? What is the experience for someone passing by? For someone who touches it?I would suggest to you to rethink the experience. You can find some inspiration in places like ars technical (and others). Look at this image of a sound installation– http://www.audioversum.at/It’s simple, intriguing, there’s a performance element, an intimate experience element … it is a technical product, but doesn’t scream “technology”. This is just an example, and probably there are thousand others – just trying to open your mind to examine the experience you are trying to createMore stuff to consider:

1. You want to have it be outside, and you’re using light sequences as your main thing. Would work at night, but what happens during the day in the israeli sunlight?
2. Have you thought about directional audio that creates “sound bubbles”?  That way your users will be able to hear the music without headphones and without “polluting” the street with music [http://www.holosonics.com/?m?]
3. But what if it’s only me around? Can I play back yesterday? Or my birthday?
4. When playing the music on someone’s phone, instead of a youtube video, it might be more interesting to create connection to the location and show footage on what was happening there when this music was captured

Enough talk, now go and make a memorable, emotional and beautiful piece of art. 

Good luck!

Mentor Critique Sound Recordings

Part 1 (8 Minutes)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vc3hyung0xmm4w3/Critique%20P1.m4a
Part 2 (~4.5 Minutes)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ucjziay2xtf6qro/Critique%20P2.m4a

Final Week of Semester: Summary

Critique for the StreetBeat:

Adi (MS Innovation leader):

• Our architecture ignores several obstacles: First and foremost, VANDALISM.
• Consider adding a WiFi connection
• Think about vandalism issues
• Our technological side must be emphasized and a complete tech EndToEnd scenraio should be defined

Spock

• We should know that playing just music from YouTube is not allowed (Ran already addressed this issue by suggesting SoundCloud)

Amiel:

• Our survey data is questionable
• We should look at Serendip: http://serendip.me/application/login
• We should not overlook "general" data (we're not planning to)
• The design is not very good; we should speak with Liat*

Itai:

• Our story is still rough
• We should look at TuneWiki: http://www.tunewiki.com/
• We should think about starting event-based (like HashTagArt)**

Henit:

• Our experiment is not credible: we should look for problems when conducting an experiment
• Our differentiation is lacking in the sense that we didn't present a need that can't be better addressed in other manners -> We should try to position ourselves more precisely, when looking at the competition***
• We should also describe what happens "after" our current scenario; data-wise and user-wise; this should be added to the vision(?)

Guy:

• The pictures on the user survey didn't match the talk

Bottom line and next steps:

*We should ask to speak with Liat and consult about a better design. While we're at it, consult how to actually build it.
**We could start at a head-phone party, they have these at Dizegoff square every once in a while.

***Find a better way to show a competition slide that categorizes other products/services.

Now really, the bottom line: |
                                            V
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Guy's Comments on Our Pitch + Current Work

Storyboard related:

• A bit slow paced and repetitive at first
• The "arrival" of a song on the cube must be better visualized
• Consider showing "chart" by genre or rotating between artist and genre
• Must decide on the order of display (does a single location represent a single place in the "recently played" list?)

Maya also commented that she thinks we should start with Rihanna, as it has a better beat, we should another person to the story (Guy agreed) and that she thinks a single screen might be better.

General:

• We should find a way to allow users to see a history of played songs 
• We should try to think what other types of experiences could be added
• Cost issues should be attended (though not urgent for now)

What's next?

For next week we must have the user study designed. For this we must decide on what can be prepared for it.

The storyboard or scenario needs to be revised according to above comments.

First "brick" or POC needs to be prepared.