The document summarizes the findings of a usability study conducted on the Last.fm website. It describes the purpose of the study as establishing a usability baseline and identifying strengths and weaknesses. It then outlines the methodology, including testing 10 participants at a CBS facility and having them complete tasks while thinking aloud. Key observations included that participants did not fully understand Last.fm's purpose and value proposition, and the call-to-action on the homepage was weak at directing engagement. Recommendations were made to improve elements like the homepage design, navigation, and music licensing clarity.
FindStream is a music discovery engine that analyzes data from 25,000 global radio broadcasts to build perfect playlists and provide recommendations. It aims to solve the problem of finding new music to enjoy from the over 30 million tracks available by using the expert opinions of radio DJs rather than tags, genres or algorithms. The service monitors radio stations worldwide, analyzes songs and artist connections to deliver trending music and compile playlists around any song.
SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform that allows users to easily upload, share, and discover music. It has become a popular platform for emerging artists and DJs to publish their work, connect with collaborators, and gain exposure. While originally free for all users, SoundCloud has recently launched paid subscription services to help monetize content and compensate artists as the music industry shifts to streaming models.
SoundCloud has become the most popular streaming music service due to its popularity among electronic dance music artists and fans, its superior features like continuous streaming and fewer usage restrictions, and its global availability anywhere with an internet connection. Founded in 2008, it has grown to over 40 million registered users and leads other services like Pandora and Spotify in global web traffic. Its competitive advantages stem primarily from its features catering to EDM fans and its open platform enabling greater content sharing and discovery worldwide.
The document analyzes different music streaming services based on their positioning in the market. It segments the market into categories of "Artist Driven" services like SoundCloud that promote underground artists, "Carefree Listening" services like Pandora for passive background music, "Discounted Listening" services like Apple Music that offer family plans, and "Music Discovery" leaders like Spotify for exploring new music. Through associations and positioning statements, it evaluates the brand personalities of each service. A perceptual map shows how services are perceived along dimensions of new music discovery and carefree listening. It concludes with a quote advocating for a service that promotes full album experiences and music discovery through human interaction rather than algorithms.
This document provides information about SoundCloud, a social sound platform that allows users to create and share sounds. It describes SoundCloud's mission to enable anyone to create and share sounds easily. Users can record and upload sounds to their personal SoundCloud page and share them publicly or privately. The document outlines how SoundCloud works, the sharing options through other social media platforms, and exploring and interacting on SoundCloud through its website and mobile applications. It also discusses monitoring SoundCloud through Google alerts and Hootsuite and analyzing social objects about SoundCloud found on YouTube and other websites.
Social Tags and Music Information Retrieval (Part I)Paul Lamere
Part 1 of the Social Tags and Music Information Retrieval Tutorial. Abstract: Social Tags are free text labels that are applied to items such as artists, playlists and songs. These tags have the potential to have a positive impact on music information retrieval research. In this tutorial we describe the state of the art in commercial and research social tagging systems for music. We explore some of the motivations for tagging. We describe the factors that affect the quantity and quality of collected tags. We present a toolkit that MIR researchers can use to harvest and process tags. We look at how tags are collected and used in current commercial and research systems. We explore some of the issues and problems that are encountered when using tags. We present current MIR-related research centered on social tags and suggest possible areas of exploration for future resear
Smart Phones, Smart Audiences? SF Discussion June 2017Gigi Johnson
Gigi Johnson joined guests with the San Francisco Entertainment Commission on a warm SF day to discuss how technology influences music consumption and live concert choices. These slides kicked off the conversation, which continued for about 3 hours in total. The conversation included discussions of the impact of streaming music and digital subscriptions, as well as playlists, on how we decide if and where to go for live content.
This document describes a machine learning project to classify debut artists as "worth creating content for" or "ignore" based on their attributes. The project uses a random forest classifier trained on data crawled from various music media sites. Features include genre, ratings, social media followers, and number of related articles. The random forest model achieved an F1 score of 0.7 and AUC of 0.91 for the "worth creating content" class. Further improvements could include handling data imbalances and integrating text analysis. A web app was also created to automate predictions.
FindStream is a music discovery engine that analyzes data from 25,000 global radio broadcasts to build perfect playlists and provide recommendations. It aims to solve the problem of finding new music to enjoy from the over 30 million tracks available by using the expert opinions of radio DJs rather than tags, genres or algorithms. The service monitors radio stations worldwide, analyzes songs and artist connections to deliver trending music and compile playlists around any song.
SoundCloud is an online audio distribution platform that allows users to easily upload, share, and discover music. It has become a popular platform for emerging artists and DJs to publish their work, connect with collaborators, and gain exposure. While originally free for all users, SoundCloud has recently launched paid subscription services to help monetize content and compensate artists as the music industry shifts to streaming models.
SoundCloud has become the most popular streaming music service due to its popularity among electronic dance music artists and fans, its superior features like continuous streaming and fewer usage restrictions, and its global availability anywhere with an internet connection. Founded in 2008, it has grown to over 40 million registered users and leads other services like Pandora and Spotify in global web traffic. Its competitive advantages stem primarily from its features catering to EDM fans and its open platform enabling greater content sharing and discovery worldwide.
The document analyzes different music streaming services based on their positioning in the market. It segments the market into categories of "Artist Driven" services like SoundCloud that promote underground artists, "Carefree Listening" services like Pandora for passive background music, "Discounted Listening" services like Apple Music that offer family plans, and "Music Discovery" leaders like Spotify for exploring new music. Through associations and positioning statements, it evaluates the brand personalities of each service. A perceptual map shows how services are perceived along dimensions of new music discovery and carefree listening. It concludes with a quote advocating for a service that promotes full album experiences and music discovery through human interaction rather than algorithms.
This document provides information about SoundCloud, a social sound platform that allows users to create and share sounds. It describes SoundCloud's mission to enable anyone to create and share sounds easily. Users can record and upload sounds to their personal SoundCloud page and share them publicly or privately. The document outlines how SoundCloud works, the sharing options through other social media platforms, and exploring and interacting on SoundCloud through its website and mobile applications. It also discusses monitoring SoundCloud through Google alerts and Hootsuite and analyzing social objects about SoundCloud found on YouTube and other websites.
Social Tags and Music Information Retrieval (Part I)Paul Lamere
Part 1 of the Social Tags and Music Information Retrieval Tutorial. Abstract: Social Tags are free text labels that are applied to items such as artists, playlists and songs. These tags have the potential to have a positive impact on music information retrieval research. In this tutorial we describe the state of the art in commercial and research social tagging systems for music. We explore some of the motivations for tagging. We describe the factors that affect the quantity and quality of collected tags. We present a toolkit that MIR researchers can use to harvest and process tags. We look at how tags are collected and used in current commercial and research systems. We explore some of the issues and problems that are encountered when using tags. We present current MIR-related research centered on social tags and suggest possible areas of exploration for future resear
Smart Phones, Smart Audiences? SF Discussion June 2017Gigi Johnson
Gigi Johnson joined guests with the San Francisco Entertainment Commission on a warm SF day to discuss how technology influences music consumption and live concert choices. These slides kicked off the conversation, which continued for about 3 hours in total. The conversation included discussions of the impact of streaming music and digital subscriptions, as well as playlists, on how we decide if and where to go for live content.
This document describes a machine learning project to classify debut artists as "worth creating content for" or "ignore" based on their attributes. The project uses a random forest classifier trained on data crawled from various music media sites. Features include genre, ratings, social media followers, and number of related articles. The random forest model achieved an F1 score of 0.7 and AUC of 0.91 for the "worth creating content" class. Further improvements could include handling data imbalances and integrating text analysis. A web app was also created to automate predictions.
Social Tags and Music Information Retrieval (Part II)Paul Lamere
Part 2 of the slides for the Social Tags and Music Information Retrieval Tutorial - Abstract: Social Tags are free text labels that are applied to items such as artists, playlists and songs. These tags have the potential to have a positive impact on music information retrieval research. In this tutorial we describe the state of the art in commercial and research social tagging systems for music. We explore some of the motivations for tagging. We describe the factors that affect the quantity and quality of collected tags. We present a toolkit that MIR researchers can use to harvest and process tags. We look at how tags are collected and used in current commercial and research systems. We explore some of the issues and problems that are encountered when using tags. We present current MIR-related research centered on social tags and suggest possible areas of exploration for future resear
This document discusses Gracenote's efforts to analyze music and automatically label songs with mood descriptors to help users discover and navigate music collections. Gracenote analyzed over 30 million songs and generated a sonic mood profile for each using machine learning models trained on a taxonomy of over 10,000 expert-annotated songs. The mood profiles provide scores across 101 mood dimensions and aim to describe the music in terms that parallel how listeners describe their desired listening experiences. The mood labels can be used to power more intuitive music recommendations, playlists, radio stations and discovery experiences for consumers.
Gracenote Music Recognition, Metadata, and Discovery APIsChing-Wei Chen
The document discusses Gracenote's music recognition, metadata, and discovery APIs. It provides details on the APIs' abilities to recognize music, retrieve metadata like artist names and images, and discover similar artists or tracks. The APIs also include a global genre and mood taxonomy to categorize music. Gracenote offers SDKs, libraries, and APIs for various platforms to access these music recognition and metadata retrieval services.
20190625 Research at Taiwan AI Labs: Music and Speech AIYi-Hsuan Yang
A very brief introduction of what we have been working on at the AI Labs on "music AI" (specifically, automatic music composition/generation) and "speech AI" (specifically, Mandarin ASR).
Do Androids Dream Of Algorithmic PlaylistsMatthew Hawn
This document discusses the concept of playlists and how Last.fm uses algorithms and human input to create personalized playlists. It defines an algorithm as a set of instructions to calculate something. Last.fm's algorithms create recommendations based on a user's listening history. While algorithms are useful, the best DJs provide context and meaning through their deep music knowledge and understanding of audiences. A hybrid approach combining algorithms, user data from scrobbling, and human curation can produce playlists with both personalization and meaning. Radio should incorporate both algorithmic and individual human elements.
This document contains a list of over 100 bookmarks and web page links related to music, including:
- Sites for downloading free MP3s of various music genres
- Directories of music artists and albums
- Radio stations that stream different types of music online
- Pages with lyrics, discographies, and information about songwriters
- Educational resources like courses and tutorials about music production and history
- Video sites with musical films, performances and documentaries
- News sites and blogs focused on the music industry
The document summarizes a usability study conducted on a mobile healthcare app. It describes the study process, which included an expert review by four consultants and a usability test with four nurse participants. The usability test involved tasks, questionnaires, and a System Usability Scale (SUS) survey. Findings uncovered issues in areas like patient profiles, reminders, and notes. Participants indicated features that could simplify their work. Overall, they viewed the app positively and thought it could benefit them, though some functionality improvements were identified.
If you’ve never requested a usability study bid before or you want to see how our process differs from others you have worked with in the past — this deck is for you. Here is the 5-step process June UX uses to plan and conduct moderated usability studies.
The document summarizes the development of a digital assistant called MatBot for MATLAB users. It describes conducting research on existing ambassador programs, interviewing a current ambassador to understand challenges, and creating a persona. Several prototypes were created, with the final prototype being a bot community where ambassadors can build, train, and share bots to help with tasks like event organization and connecting with others. The goal is to engage ambassadors and help the community be self-sustaining.
Amazon's user experience provides essential information in an easy to navigate format while obtaining valuable user feedback. However, some pages could be improved by reducing clutter and better targeting advertisements and content. The mobile app takes full advantage of capabilities like barcode scanning and photo search. Testing of new features like group gift purchasing would help understand user needs and feasibility.
Case study: Lab + Online Usability TestingUserZoom
1) A case study compared usability testing of Amazon's grocery section in both a lab and online setting.
2) Participants struggled to find dishwasher detergent and Skippy peanut butter due to confusing navigation and lack of clear organization of grocery items.
3) While the lab study provided more qualitative insights, the online study identified usability issues through metrics from a larger sample size. Combining the methods provided a more comprehensive understanding of areas for improvement.
This usability study summary provides the following key information in 3 sentences:
The study tested 10 participants on various tasks within the Skype for Business Android app like IM conversations, voice and video calls, and meetings. Overall, participants found the app intuitive to use and encountered few issues with core functions. However, some opportunities were identified like improving notifications during calls, adding multiple video windows in group calls, and enhancing the meeting experience.
This is a presentation for a group project in FSU iSchool's Information Architecture class. My group redesigned the Free Music Archive site to increase discoverability and principles of IA.
DePaul HCI 580- Digital Tip Jar Final PresentationKate Fitzgibbon
This document summarizes work done by a student team to design a digital tip jar app called Felicity. The team conducted stakeholder interviews, identified key themes around engagement and discovery, did user research with fans and musicians, created personas and affinity diagrams, designed wireframes and a prototype, and conducted usability testing. Testing provided positive feedback but also identified issues like too many clicks, unclear terminology, and security concerns. Recommendations were made to address these issues and enhance features for both fans and musicians in a future state.
ux academy - Beginner UX Design Course Portfolio - Louise MobileUXLondon
Users struggle to find all their favorite artists' albums across different music streaming services. The team interviewed music streaming service users to understand their pains and needs. They found that nearly 30% use Spotify primarily but users wish for better music discovery features across services, like integrating Shazam to save songs for later on Spotify. The team created a prototype to address these issues and allow unified music streaming, but need further iteration focused on new music, genres, and additional user testing.
UPDATED VERSION (2011): http://www.slideshare.net/plamere/music-recommendation-and-discovery
As the world of online music grows, music 2.0 recommendation systems become an increasingly important way for music listeners to discover new music.
Commercial recommenders such as Last.fm and Pandora have enjoyed commercial and critical success. But how well do these systems really work? How good are the recommendations? How far into The Long Tail do these recommenders reach?
In this tutorial we look at the current stateof theart in music recommendation. We examine current commercial and research systems, focusing on the advantages and the disadvantages of the various recommendation strategies. We look at some of the challenges in building music recommenders and we explore some of the ways that MIR techniques can be used to improve future recommenders.
The document discusses a survey on music recognition searching applications, finding that while users appreciate the convenience of such apps, limitations include over half refusing to help enlarge databases and the top reason for not using an app being required fees, suggesting challenges in building large databases and monetizing without compromising user experience.
A webinar about how small organizations with limited funds can use online video of live dance performance, and be successful in attracting paid subscribers and viewers.
Sarah Wilke, Managing Director, On the Boards
On the Boards has created the first-of-its-kind website offering streaming and download access to high quality full-length videos of contemporary performances. They have faced interesting issues about how to translate the integrity and beauty of a live dance into an online video, and especially about how companies can use technology to increase their revenue and support artists.
During the webinar, Sarah Wilke, Managing Director of On the Boards, will talk about their approach, share hints and discuss the pitfalls that arose in creating it, and tell us what they’ve learned so far about answering these important questions. In advance, she will share examples of their high def multi-camera videos of performances.
Social Tags and Music Information Retrieval (Part II)Paul Lamere
Part 2 of the slides for the Social Tags and Music Information Retrieval Tutorial - Abstract: Social Tags are free text labels that are applied to items such as artists, playlists and songs. These tags have the potential to have a positive impact on music information retrieval research. In this tutorial we describe the state of the art in commercial and research social tagging systems for music. We explore some of the motivations for tagging. We describe the factors that affect the quantity and quality of collected tags. We present a toolkit that MIR researchers can use to harvest and process tags. We look at how tags are collected and used in current commercial and research systems. We explore some of the issues and problems that are encountered when using tags. We present current MIR-related research centered on social tags and suggest possible areas of exploration for future resear
This document discusses Gracenote's efforts to analyze music and automatically label songs with mood descriptors to help users discover and navigate music collections. Gracenote analyzed over 30 million songs and generated a sonic mood profile for each using machine learning models trained on a taxonomy of over 10,000 expert-annotated songs. The mood profiles provide scores across 101 mood dimensions and aim to describe the music in terms that parallel how listeners describe their desired listening experiences. The mood labels can be used to power more intuitive music recommendations, playlists, radio stations and discovery experiences for consumers.
Gracenote Music Recognition, Metadata, and Discovery APIsChing-Wei Chen
The document discusses Gracenote's music recognition, metadata, and discovery APIs. It provides details on the APIs' abilities to recognize music, retrieve metadata like artist names and images, and discover similar artists or tracks. The APIs also include a global genre and mood taxonomy to categorize music. Gracenote offers SDKs, libraries, and APIs for various platforms to access these music recognition and metadata retrieval services.
20190625 Research at Taiwan AI Labs: Music and Speech AIYi-Hsuan Yang
A very brief introduction of what we have been working on at the AI Labs on "music AI" (specifically, automatic music composition/generation) and "speech AI" (specifically, Mandarin ASR).
Do Androids Dream Of Algorithmic PlaylistsMatthew Hawn
This document discusses the concept of playlists and how Last.fm uses algorithms and human input to create personalized playlists. It defines an algorithm as a set of instructions to calculate something. Last.fm's algorithms create recommendations based on a user's listening history. While algorithms are useful, the best DJs provide context and meaning through their deep music knowledge and understanding of audiences. A hybrid approach combining algorithms, user data from scrobbling, and human curation can produce playlists with both personalization and meaning. Radio should incorporate both algorithmic and individual human elements.
This document contains a list of over 100 bookmarks and web page links related to music, including:
- Sites for downloading free MP3s of various music genres
- Directories of music artists and albums
- Radio stations that stream different types of music online
- Pages with lyrics, discographies, and information about songwriters
- Educational resources like courses and tutorials about music production and history
- Video sites with musical films, performances and documentaries
- News sites and blogs focused on the music industry
The document summarizes a usability study conducted on a mobile healthcare app. It describes the study process, which included an expert review by four consultants and a usability test with four nurse participants. The usability test involved tasks, questionnaires, and a System Usability Scale (SUS) survey. Findings uncovered issues in areas like patient profiles, reminders, and notes. Participants indicated features that could simplify their work. Overall, they viewed the app positively and thought it could benefit them, though some functionality improvements were identified.
If you’ve never requested a usability study bid before or you want to see how our process differs from others you have worked with in the past — this deck is for you. Here is the 5-step process June UX uses to plan and conduct moderated usability studies.
The document summarizes the development of a digital assistant called MatBot for MATLAB users. It describes conducting research on existing ambassador programs, interviewing a current ambassador to understand challenges, and creating a persona. Several prototypes were created, with the final prototype being a bot community where ambassadors can build, train, and share bots to help with tasks like event organization and connecting with others. The goal is to engage ambassadors and help the community be self-sustaining.
Amazon's user experience provides essential information in an easy to navigate format while obtaining valuable user feedback. However, some pages could be improved by reducing clutter and better targeting advertisements and content. The mobile app takes full advantage of capabilities like barcode scanning and photo search. Testing of new features like group gift purchasing would help understand user needs and feasibility.
Case study: Lab + Online Usability TestingUserZoom
1) A case study compared usability testing of Amazon's grocery section in both a lab and online setting.
2) Participants struggled to find dishwasher detergent and Skippy peanut butter due to confusing navigation and lack of clear organization of grocery items.
3) While the lab study provided more qualitative insights, the online study identified usability issues through metrics from a larger sample size. Combining the methods provided a more comprehensive understanding of areas for improvement.
This usability study summary provides the following key information in 3 sentences:
The study tested 10 participants on various tasks within the Skype for Business Android app like IM conversations, voice and video calls, and meetings. Overall, participants found the app intuitive to use and encountered few issues with core functions. However, some opportunities were identified like improving notifications during calls, adding multiple video windows in group calls, and enhancing the meeting experience.
This is a presentation for a group project in FSU iSchool's Information Architecture class. My group redesigned the Free Music Archive site to increase discoverability and principles of IA.
DePaul HCI 580- Digital Tip Jar Final PresentationKate Fitzgibbon
This document summarizes work done by a student team to design a digital tip jar app called Felicity. The team conducted stakeholder interviews, identified key themes around engagement and discovery, did user research with fans and musicians, created personas and affinity diagrams, designed wireframes and a prototype, and conducted usability testing. Testing provided positive feedback but also identified issues like too many clicks, unclear terminology, and security concerns. Recommendations were made to address these issues and enhance features for both fans and musicians in a future state.
ux academy - Beginner UX Design Course Portfolio - Louise MobileUXLondon
Users struggle to find all their favorite artists' albums across different music streaming services. The team interviewed music streaming service users to understand their pains and needs. They found that nearly 30% use Spotify primarily but users wish for better music discovery features across services, like integrating Shazam to save songs for later on Spotify. The team created a prototype to address these issues and allow unified music streaming, but need further iteration focused on new music, genres, and additional user testing.
UPDATED VERSION (2011): http://www.slideshare.net/plamere/music-recommendation-and-discovery
As the world of online music grows, music 2.0 recommendation systems become an increasingly important way for music listeners to discover new music.
Commercial recommenders such as Last.fm and Pandora have enjoyed commercial and critical success. But how well do these systems really work? How good are the recommendations? How far into The Long Tail do these recommenders reach?
In this tutorial we look at the current stateof theart in music recommendation. We examine current commercial and research systems, focusing on the advantages and the disadvantages of the various recommendation strategies. We look at some of the challenges in building music recommenders and we explore some of the ways that MIR techniques can be used to improve future recommenders.
The document discusses a survey on music recognition searching applications, finding that while users appreciate the convenience of such apps, limitations include over half refusing to help enlarge databases and the top reason for not using an app being required fees, suggesting challenges in building large databases and monetizing without compromising user experience.
A webinar about how small organizations with limited funds can use online video of live dance performance, and be successful in attracting paid subscribers and viewers.
Sarah Wilke, Managing Director, On the Boards
On the Boards has created the first-of-its-kind website offering streaming and download access to high quality full-length videos of contemporary performances. They have faced interesting issues about how to translate the integrity and beauty of a live dance into an online video, and especially about how companies can use technology to increase their revenue and support artists.
During the webinar, Sarah Wilke, Managing Director of On the Boards, will talk about their approach, share hints and discuss the pitfalls that arose in creating it, and tell us what they’ve learned so far about answering these important questions. In advance, she will share examples of their high def multi-camera videos of performances.
This document outlines the planning and development of a mobile app called Table Selecta. It was created by Jens Pelgrims and William De Keyzer to allow crowds in public spaces like bars to influence the music selection. The document introduces the problem, research questions, objectives, literature review, prototypes, and planning. It aims to give users a voice in music choice while also providing DJs with crowd preference analytics. Two app versions are proposed - one for parties where the DJ has primary control, and one for bars/homes where users have more direct control.
This document outlines a marketing plan to target "Relapsed Young Adults" ages 23-30 who used to play piano but quit. The plan aims to get these potential customers aware of, interested in, and committing to Playground Sessions, an online piano learning platform. Key tactics include digital ads on music videos/sites, banners at concerts, and promoting the 7-day free trial. Goals are 375M impressions to raise awareness, 750K visitors for consideration, 5,625 purchases, and improved retention rates.
The best process of finding music updated 2023 doc 19.docxintel-writers.com
The process of finding music
can be highly subjective and dependent on personal preferences. What may be considered the “best” process for one individual may not be the same for another. However, there are several common approaches that people use to discover and find new music. Here are some of the commonly used methods:
Streaming Platforms: With the rise of music streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music, many people find music through curated playlists, personalized recommendations, and algorithm-based suggestions. These platforms analyze users’ listening habits and preferences to provide tailored music suggestions, making it easier to discover new artists and genres.
Online Music Blogs and Magazines: Music blogs and online magazines often feature reviews, interviews, and curated playlists that highlight emerging artists and new releases. Many music enthusiasts follow these platforms to stay updated on the latest trends and recommendations in different genres.
Social Media: Social media platforms, such as Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, have become popular channels for discovering music. Artists, influencers, and music enthusiasts often share and recommend songs or artists through their profiles, posts, or dedicated music-related accounts. Hashtags and trending challenges can also contribute to music discovery.
Radio and Podcasts: Traditional radio stations and online radio platforms still play a significant role in music discovery. DJs, music programs, and specialty shows feature diverse genres and introduce listeners to new music. Similarly, podcasts focused on music provide platforms for discussions, interviews, and recommendations, offering an avenue to explore different artists and genres.
Recommendations from Friends and Peers: Personal recommendations from friends, family, or colleagues can be a valuable source for discovering new music. Sharing playlists, exchanging music recommendations, or attending live music events together can expose you to different artists and expand your musical horizons.
Music Festivals and Concerts: Attending music festivals and concerts allows you to experience live performances and discover artists you may not have encountered otherwise. Many festivals feature diverse lineups and stages dedicated to different genres, providing opportunities to explore and find new music.
This document outlines the goals and design process for an online resource for the USC Popular Music Network. It aims to provide an attractive, interactive hub to showcase USC popular music majors and their work. The target audience includes music students, musicians, and fans seeking new music and connections. Key features include artist profiles with photos and music, as well as a randomizing photo grid and modular design to highlight various media. Research on similar music sites and an iterative design process informed the final product. The overall intention was to authentically represent the network and provide an easy-to-use portal for discovering new popular music.
The document provides an overview of podcasting, including what podcasts are, who listens to them, and tools for producing and hosting podcasts. It also lists several new library podcasts and tips for planning and producing podcasts, such as having a plan, creating good content, and connecting with other departments.
This document provides information about creating an audio production project with middle school students. It discusses how the project was inspired by other classroom work and examples. An audio format was chosen because it is accessible with common technology, allows students to fill in visual details, and has fewer copyright issues than video. The document outlines the process of writing a script, auditioning for roles, finding sound effects and music, editing the audio tracks together using Audacity software, promoting the finished production through a website, and sharing it with an audience.
The document discusses the rise of podcasting and its implications for libraries and reference services. It provides background on what podcasting is, who listens to podcasts, and examples of libraries that have implemented podcasts for things like instruction sessions, tours of the library, and subject guides. It also offers tips for planning and creating podcasts, including considering your voice, scripting but not reading, finding a quiet space, and using multiple voices.
This document proposes an interactive tool called MULHER for exploring music listening histories. It describes issues with existing visualizations like being static, lacking interactivity, and scaling issues. MULHER uses a timeline-based visualization combined with other synchronized views to allow interactive browsing, filtering, and detection of listening patterns. An evaluation with users found the timeline mechanism was effective for exploration. Context information and representing the "age" of songs also helped convey listening habits. The tool enabled users to analyze their profiles and infer hidden behaviors from their music listening data.
Using mashup technology to improve findabilitySten Govaerts
The document discusses using mashup technology to improve findability by combining data from multiple online sources to create new results. It describes a project called Rockanango that uses musical metadata from expert sources and applies it to hospitality contexts by developing musical contexts and schemas. Finally, it evaluates generating metadata for songs using various sources and techniques to classify artists by origin and genre.
Narrathon provides live-streamed talks with an interactive Q&A voting system. The company has pivoted from matching music teachers and students to providing virtual lessons and masterclasses, and developing a platform for live virtual events. Customer discovery involved interviewing potential partners in news, healthcare, conferences, music, and sports. Early pilots with a doctor and university panel showed low engagement. The vision is to provide interactive content to audiences of sports teams, orchestras, and conferences through sponsor partnerships. Further testing is needed with larger partners to validate the business model and improve the technology.
The document proposes developing an online Singapore music portal to promote and preserve local music culture by giving local musicians a platform to be heard, network, and find opportunities. It discusses problems facing musicians in Singapore like lack of recognition and scattered information. The proposed solution is an online portal for profiling musicians, listing events, and potentially including online jamming to help bands form and connect locally and globally.
The usability test of the Dow Jones website identified several areas for improvement:
1. The purpose and functionality of the Deep Dive section were unclear to participants and its customization process was difficult to use.
2. The search algorithm sometimes returned inconsistent or irrelevant results, and saving searches was confusing.
3. Creating alerts and customizing My News was challenging for participants to understand. Some also encountered system errors.
4. While seen as useful, the toolbar was often missed or its connection to the My News page was unclear. Simplifying complex areas and better explaining features were recommended.
This document outlines use cases for registration on the CBSnews.com website. It describes the basic registration flow for visitors who are not currently registered users. This includes having visitors fill in registration information, agree to terms and conditions, submit their information, and receive a confirmation. It also describes alternative flows for registered and non-registered users to perform actions like managing email/wireless alerts, commenting on articles, and watching videos. It identifies some exceptional error flows and discusses some open issues and risks with the registration system.
The Wall Street Journal launched a new section called Off Duty that is included as an insert in the print paper on weekends and available online. Off Duty expands the WSJ brand by providing editorial content focused on fashion, food, travel, and other aspects of life and culture. It includes a landing page and multiple story pages.
The document discusses eye tracking data and shows that people had longer eye fixations on longer prices and shorter eye fixations on shorter, simpler prices. The document is marked confidential and not for distribution.
Final initial feedback commissioner usability study.docxRobert Sherron
The usability study found that:
1) The homepage was cluttered and confusing for new users to navigate, with too much competing for attention.
2) It was difficult to distinguish fantasy news from fantasy products on the site.
3) The fantasy football commissioner product was seen as robust but too expensive, especially for new users.
4) The payment submission process asked for unnecessary security information, introducing obstacles.
Final study of fantasy football landing pagesRobert Sherron
The document summarizes an A/B test of different versions of a fantasy football landing page. The LONG version provided extensive information without mentioning price, while the PRICE version prominently displayed the price with minimal other information. Statistical analysis found that LONG had a higher rate of league creation, while PRICE had a higher rate of paid league creation. Eye tracking and user testing found mixed preferences among versions. The study recommends testing combinations of LONG and PRICE approaches in future iterations.
CBS Sports landing page optimization methodology names removedRobert Sherron
This document outlines a project to optimize the landing page for Fantasy Football Commissioner (FFC) through A/B testing. The goal is to increase conversions of new users signing up for FFC. The project will create alternative landing page designs and use a modified A/B test to evaluate which design has the highest conversion rate. Metrics like time on page and signups will be measured. Testing will occur over the summer of 2008. Additional user testing may also provide insights to complement the A/B test results.
CBS Sports Analytics, Usability, and Research RoadmapRobert Sherron
- CBSSports.com saw double-digit growth in key metrics like unique visitors, visits and page views through the first two weeks of the season compared to last year. Mobile usage also rebounded in week 2 with increases in unique visitors, visits and page views after declining in week 1.
- A new live streaming fantasy football show on CBSSports.com called Fantasy Football Today saw a large increase in streams and viewing minutes between weeks 1 and 2 as it was added to team home pages.
- Additional analytics showed increases in referral traffic from search engines and other sites, as well as higher mobile and desktop usage on Sundays compared to other days of the week.
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2. Overview of contents
Why we conducted a Usability test
Where we tested – Study Facility
How we tested – Methodology
Who we tested – Participant Profiles
What we saw – Observations
What should we do – Recommendations
Next Steps
2
3. Why we conducted a Usability test:
• To establish a usability and user experience baseline of Last.fm
• To establish the foundation for a method of observation and evaluation
• To discover strengths and weaknesses of the current website
• To provide recommendations for design alternatives
3
4. Overview of contents
Why we conducted a Usability test
Where we tested – Study Facility
How we tested – Methodology
Who we tested – Participant Profiles
What we saw – Observations
What should we do – Recommendations
Next Steps
4
5. Where we tested - Study Facility
• CBS Television City, Las Vegas – NV
• Usability tests were conducted in one of the adjacent focus group rooms
similar to the one pictured above.
5
6. Overview of contents
Why we conducted a Usability test
Where we tested – Study Facility
How we tested – Methodology
Who we tested – Participant Profiles
What we saw – Observations
What should we do – Recommendations
Next Steps
6
7. How we tested - Methodology
• CBS Television City staff recruited 10 participants.
• A screener was used to recruit: young, tech savvy, online music
enthusiasts.
• Each session lasted about one hour.
• Participants were given an opportunity to freely explore last.fm
• Afterwards, a moderator guided each participant through a series of Tasks:
Play music or video (interact with controls)
View photos
Register for the site
Find similar artists
Add music to library
Interpret site content
Compare registered user’s “home page” to “profile page”
7
8. How we tested – Methodology, continued…
• Participants started their session one of two ways:
1. From an Artist page (to simulate entry from a Search engine)
2. From the Last.fm home page (to simulate entry from an advertisement or word-of-mouth)
• The start task was alternated between sessions to avoid potential ordering
affects.
• An Eye Tracker was used to record eye fixations (areas of interest on a page)
during the initial exposure to the Last.fm Home page.
• Participants were asked to talk aloud while they interacted with the site.
8
9. Overview of contents
Why we conducted a Usability test
Where we tested – Study Facility
How we tested – Methodology
Who we tested – Participant Profiles
What we saw – Observations
What should we do – Recommendations
Next Steps
9
10. Participant Profiles
• Gender mix: 6 Men, 4 Women
• Ages: ranged from 18-30 years of age (average =23)
• Education:
– 6 participants had some college education (4 were currently students)
– 3 participants had earned four year college degrees
– 1 participant had completed high school (no collegiate course work)
• Marital Status: 9 single, 1 married
• Music spending: participants reported spending an average of $66.00 on
digital music over the last six months - though this amount varied widely
among participants (ranging from $10 to as much as $200).
• Occupations: Retail Sales Representative, Student, Construction Worker,
Director of Membership & Marketing, Information Systems, Counselor
10
11. Participants – Young, tech savvy, online music enthusiasts
Jonathan - CA Paul - CA Amanda - IL Svetlana - PA David - VA
Age: 20 Age: 21 Age: 19 Age: 22 Age: 30
Fav Band: Linkin Park Fav Band: Three Days Grace Fav Band: Jacks Mannequin Fav Band: Less Than Jake Fav Band: Kenney Chesney
Recent Visits: Yahoo! Music, Recent Visits: Yahoo! Music, Recent Visits: iTunes, Recent Visits: AOL Music, Recent Visits: Yahoo! Music,
iTunes, MySpace, Facebook Pandora, Facebook Facebook, MTV Yahoo! Music, iTunes, iTunes, MySpace
Download.com, MySpace,
Facebook, MTV
Sergio - CA Megan - FL Andrew - TX Chris - TX Kelly - PA
Age: 18 Age: 30 Age: 21 Age: 27 Age: 21
Fav Band: DragonForce Fav Band: Dave Matthews Fav Band: Circa Survive Fav Band: Sparta Fav Band: 50 Cent
Recent Visits: AOL Music, Recent Visits: iTunes, Napster Recent Visits: AOL Music, Recent Visits: iTunes, Recent Visits: Yahoo! Music,
Yahoo! Music, iTunes, iTunes, MySpace, Facebook, MySpace, Facebook, MTV iTunes, MySpace, Facebook
Rhapsody, MySpace, MTV
Facebook, MTV
11
12. Overview of contents
Why we conducted a Usability test
Where we tested – Study Facility
How we tested – Methodology
Who we tested – Participant Profiles
What we saw – Observations
What should we do – Recommendations
Next Steps
12
13. Observations: Main Takeaways
• Lots of positive feedback about Last.fm:
– Comprehensive nature of the site (information and music)
– Ability to view a band’s touring information (Events)
– Accurate and contextual music recommendations
• But, even after an hour of exposure, participants did not fully or
confidently grasp the purpose and utility of Last.fm
• At the end of the test, the following comments were common:
– “I don’t know how well it works or what it does”
– “I haven’t had a chance to see what last.fm does”
• Call-to-action (especially on the Home page) did not strongly direct
participants to engage the site (do things) on their own.
• Value proposition for site membership is unknown.
• Music licensing (preview vs. full tracks) is not clear to everyone.
• Community aspects are somewhat transparent.
13
14. Observations: General
• Home and Artist page designs seemed boring to some participants - not as
flashy and eye catching as other sites.
• Too much “white space” on the site – content pushed down the page.
• Page layout/design did not seem to direct participants to take action.
• Font size for text and labels seemed to be small for some participants –
more difficult to read.
• Top navigation links are not always recognized as “navigation” and tend to
be ignored especially once a participant scrolls down the page.
• Participants were ambivalent to the brand name – Last.fm. To some it
meant “satellite radio” or a “physical AM/FM radio station”, while others
made no connection at all.
Click on the video icon to view highlights of the points made on each slide in this presentation.
(5 minutes) 14
15. Observations: Home Page
• Participants not inclined to take
action or engage the site.
• Call-to-action was weakest on the
Home page.
• The “Start Your Last.fm” copy did
not sufficiently explain what a user
is supposed to do in this field.
• A heat map of the Home page
illustrates that people see the field.
The issue is that they do not
understand how to start the
engagement.
The red areas indicate longer
eye fixations on (potential
interest) while the green areas
indicate shorter eye fixation
durations. Cleary participants
saw the field… they just didn’t
engage it.
(45 seconds) 15
16. Observations: Artist Page
• Participants seeking music were very positive of content on the site – “music
Wikipedia, credible, and comprehensive”.
• Tour/Event information was a crowd pleaser!
• Several participants compared Last.fm favorably in comparison to MySpace
and Yahoo! Music sites.
• Participants tended to read text but the site lacks stickiness (engagement) and
the call-to-action is weak.
• Player not always noticed or engaged prior to moderator prodding.
• Tags for music were noticed by some participants but were not always
perceived as accurate. Negative impression for Last.fm
• “Ban this Track” was not a useful feature and has a potentially negative user
experience if clicked on by accident – there’s no way to undo!
• While playing a track, clicking on the Radio Station link on the Player spawns a
new window and plays a second song. Two songs trip over each other!
• The concept of a radio station is not understood and often confused with real,
physical AM/FM/SAT radio stations.
(10.5 minutes) 16
17. Observations: Music Licensing
• In general, participants did not understand why some songs played in full
while others were only previews.
• Last.fm’s music catalog and licensing limitations are not appropriately
conveyed – may result in users assuming they must sign-up in order to
hear a song even though the full song is not available.
(1.5 minutes) 17
18. Observations: Registration
• The sign-up (Registration) process was easy!
• Some participants mistakenly entered both verification words in one box
(it requires two).
• Purpose and benefit of membership is unknown. Most think they:
– Will get email alerts for events or other notices
– Will be able to listen to full tracks
– Will be able to create a playlist
– Communicate with other users on the site
• Audio verification is not usable! Participants said it was:
– “Creepy”
– “Really odd”
– “If someone saw this they might exit the site completely… sounds like gibberish”.
• All participants used their personal email addresses during the study (even
though they were given an option to use a test email). Good!
(4.5 minutes) 18
19. Observations: Music Recommendations
• Participants responded positively to music recommendations.
• Recommendations were regarded as accurate and contextual by
participants.
• Last.fm won over participants with the design of showing why a band is
being recommended (bands in your library promote other bands).
(1 minute) 19
20. Observations: Community
• Even though most of the participants were active MySpace and Facebook
users, the Community aspects of Last.fm were not apparent.
• Comments on Artists by other users not important to most participants.
20
21. Overview of contents
Why we conducted a Usability test
Where we tested – Study Facility
How we tested – Methodology
Who we tested – Participant Profiles
What we saw – Observations
What should we do – Recommendations
Next Steps
21
22. Recommendations – Design Intent
• Provide clearer (more directive) call-to-action on Home, Artist, and User Home
pages for:
– Listening to music
– Discovering music, artists, and bands
– Adding music to a library at initial sign-up Mission Statement is clear and concise.
– Joining the Community Option to take a tour.
– Any other engagement on the site
Mission statement is clear and
concise. Iconic call to action
for: Listen, Get Paid, Socialize.
Prominent Sign-up and short
explanation for registration.
Mission Statement is clear and concise –
prominent text for: music, videos, and photos.
22
23. Recommendations – Page Design
• Create design alternatives for Home and
Artist pages to test ideas and discover if a
design promotes intended user action.
– A/B Testing
– Usability Testing
• Consider more engaging art work and
visuals that are “vibrant and fun”.
• Remove the white space at the top of the
Home page to move content higher up on
the page.
– The current text had little or no value to
participants and simply takes up space.
• Labels for member areas are dull and
white/on/gray – easily ignored by the eye.
• Display the header navigation links in a
more prominent manner (they are
displayed in a subdued form currently)
• Consider using a larger font size or
provide a variable text size feature.
• Link the Last.fm logo to the Home page
not a user’s Home page.
23
24. Recommendations - Player
• Consider ways to visually promote the Player via color choice and/or
placement on the page – the Player was often overlooked, maybe due to
color contrast.
• Strongly consider providing a Pause button. Participants overwhelmingly
preferred Pause over Stop!
• Reconsider the value of “Ban this track”.
– Participants did not consider it useful and banning a track has a potentially negative side-
effect if clicked on by mistake.
– If retained, provide an “Undo” ban capability.
• The Player design should not intentionally play two songs at the same time.
– In the case where a user is listening to a track and then clicks on the Similar Artist Radio
Station, stop the first track and load the radio station in current page – do not spawn a
new browser window.
Results in two songs playing at the same
24
25. Recommendations – Player, continued…
• The Radio Station icon resembles a RSS or news aggregator icon which
confused some participants. It also looked like a podcast to some.
Address in design.
• Consider ways to explain why some songs are previews while others are
full tracks.
– Idea: color code tracks that are previews vs. full tracks to orient user.
• Make Last.fm’s music licensing agreements and limitations readily
apparent to users.
25
26. Recommendations - Registration
• Define and orient the user to the value of a
Membership on Last.fm Opportunity to reinforce value
and purpose of Membership.
• Remove the current audio verification feature
on sign-up.
– It was not usable and adds a negative impression of
Last.fm (challenges trust and confidence with the site)
– Revisit if a tested and viable audio option becomes
available.
• Separate the visual word verification boxes on
the Sign-up page. Some participants tended to
put both words in one box – an error.
• More directive text for Verification feature.
• Labels and copy for directions are hard to read
(light gray on white).
• Although not examined in this study, consider
how to position the difference between a
Membership and a Subscription on Last.fm.
26
27. Recommendations, Misc.
• Explain that Tags are generated by the
Community.
– Some participants thought the tag clouds
were inaccurate based on names/words
present which could skew a user’s
impression of Last.fm.
• Allow for better alignment of Similar
Artist labels with their corresponding
picture thumbnail.
• Consider combining a user’s Home page
and Profile page.
– Some participants (especially users not
familiar with MySpace or Facebook did not
understand the difference).
27
28. Recommendations, Misc.
• Periodically check Search functionality:
– The Search utility failed to find very popular bands (i.e., Chris Brown and Usher) during at least
one session- a potentially huge negative impression for Last.fm
• Be consistent with the default display
for Events and Year.
– When “Events” was selected from the left hand
navigation for the band “The Fray”, the year
2005 was the default. Intuitively the user
would expect the most recent events (2008) to
be the default.
28
29. Recommendations, Misc.
• Page treatment was inconsistent. Keep labels consistent for pictures. Currently the
terms Images and Photos are used interchangeably. Be consistent.
Artist page
Image page
29
30. Overview of contents
Why we conducted a Usability test
Where we tested – Study Facility
How we tested – Methodology
Who we tested – Participant Profiles
What we saw – Observations
What should we do – Recommendations
Next Steps
30
31. Next Steps
• Review study findings with the last.fm design team.
• Consider new design alternatives and strategies.
• Schedule iterative usability testing of design alternatives – Oct 2008?
• Expand the testing audience to include a wider user demographic.
• Complete competitive landscape study after brand positioning focus
groups.
31