Boost creativity, personalization, and self-expression

Supporting creativity, personalization, and self-expression are significant in exploratory music discovery.

Design implication 12: Enable user control in music discovery

Based on the study results, the users appreciated having an increased amount of control for fine-tuning and adjusting the music discovery parameters. For example, adjusting tempo and gain settings within a selected genre using potentiometers (Potentiometers, P4) was found to be very good. For simplicity, not all settings need to be visible at the start but should be available for tailoring the result to match user preferences. The users highlighted the ability to give feedback to the system, especially to improve and to be in control of the recommendations (SuperMusic and concepts from the playful concept exploration phase, P1-P7). Instant reaction to the user‟s feedback was seen as important. Good usability and interaction design strongly contribute to the feeling of being in control of the system.

Supporting learning and curiosity requires finding the right balance between the familiar and the unexpected to create an appealing overall system.

Another aspect in user control relates to the visibility and moderation of user-generated content and how it is used in the system. Users felt that they want to be aware of what is exposed from them to others, especially concerning user-generated content. The amount of non-adjustable exposure of user content may correlate to the user activity in creating content in a system or to how the content is created. An example includes fully open collaborative playlist creation based on users‟ mood pictures (P10) in relation to what type of pictures are chosen. Another good example is found from P11 regarding adaptive avatars representing users‟ recent music listening and how the users want to appear in the system to others.

Design implication 13: Offer evolving content

When users are discovering music, it can be highly rewarding to see the visual side of the system evolve over time as they discover and consume music (Album cover space and adaptive avatars, P6 and P11). The evolving visual side can enable the users to quickly and intuitively see the result of their actions. Based on user feedback, the system feels more alive and captivating when there is a constant change based on user activity or music consumption. The evolving aspects in a system also encourage users to frequently check and re-visit the system to be up-to-date, as with collaboratively created playlists in (P10).

The ability to iterate recommendation results in music discovery was seen as one type of evolving content. The option to take a song from the recommendation playlist and use it as a seed for a new playlist was well received (e.g., Potentiometers P4 and Album cover space P6). This enabled users to go beyond the initial recommendations and to develop the playlist based on their actions.

Design implication 14: Provide means for personalization and self-expression

With visual music discovery applications, supporting personalization and self-expression has a significant role. Creativity and self-expression can be boosted by enabling different ways of using the system, being able to customize the system functionality, its appearance, and what is exposed to others (Collaborative mood pictures and adaptive avatars, P10 and P11). When given the right tools, users will find innovative and unexpected ways to interact with the content. Supporting creativity and self-expression in the right way may result in increased creation of valuable user-generated content in the system (P10).

A visual music discovery service should somehow represent the user, which can be enabled by letting users give their own “touch” to the service. This can include modifying the service appearance or adding personal content to the users‟ own page.

Users saw it important to be able to show their musical identity to others and this should be supported in a music discovery service. The user‟s musical identity in a music discovery system may include, e.g., a music-related profile, listening history, preferred music, user‟s generated content, and music-related activity in a system. Musical identity can be promoted by means of, e.g., exposing user‟s musical taste and progress, identifying and visualizing a user based on the consumed music, and enabling rich music-related user interaction in the system. The users‟ musical taste may change over time and mood changes can be even more frequent. The system should live with the user and support and reflect these changes.

Design implication 15: Quality before quantity to enable a rich discovery experience A limited community size and a possibly limited number of songs in a music discovery service can be compensated for with high quality content (i.e., relevant music for the users with enough variation) that is presented and accessed with creative and innovative ways (Collaborative mood pictures and adaptive avatars, P10 and P11). The users have limited capabilities for consuming music and the focus should rather be to provide a pleasant high quality discovery experience instead of providing possibilities to browse all the music in the world.

Design implication 16: Involve physical activities in music discovery

The last design implication emphasizes the positive feedback related to the combination of music discovery and physical outdoor activity (MyTerritory, P9). Creating new music discovery experiences in either well-known or new surroundings can enhance the activity. The physical aspect in music discovery may bring new depth to already known surroundings and introduce a new positive aspect to daily routines (e.g., by conquering and exploring musical territories, P9). Incorporating physical activities in new surroundings can combine the music discovery with physical exploration. The physical exercise should not be the key factor in music discovery when reaching larger masses. Alternative ways for discovery should also be supported.