‘Mary had a little lamb’ was the fi rst recorded sequence of words in the history of sound recording. As a homage to that legacy, Andrea Forgacs decided to call her proposed iPad music player application ‘Mary’.
This development was based on a project exploring the transition between a traditional physical music format – the long-playing record – and the screen interface.
The result is an application that honours the ‘old’
model of the record sleeve and at the same time demonstrates a new way of listening to and enjoying music. Mary also draws a direct comparison between the tangible format and the screen, at a point in time where new, more sophisticated interfaces allow for a sense of ‘virtual’ tactility through touch and motion.
Mary is a simple and focused user interface.
Forgacs felt that the incorporation of too many features would just confuse users, and would not benefi t the purpose of making it tangible. Four key
areas for development were identifi ed: playing music, giving information, showing album art, and collecting albums. While the fi rst two of these elements were to be developed through the proposed technology, the designer felt that the third and fourth, relating to the album identity and artwork and to collecting albums, should be a key feature that the application would build upon. As such, she decided that there would be no individual track listings or complex library systems, just ‘stacks’ of virtual albums with their original cover art and information.
In the era of digital distribution and storage, music graphics and information are a disappearing phenomenon. Albums usually come with low-resolution pictures and little or no information. At best, listeners are presented with a badly made PDF booklet or a small animation that says little or nothing about the artist, producer, publisher or label.
Reproducing Sound In November 1877, the words
‘Mary had a little lamb’ were the fi rst ever recorded on a machine that could record sound and play it back. Even though it was not a very clear recording, Thomas Edison had developed the fi rst playback device, called the Phonograph, an invention that was to change the very nature of entertainment over the following century, taking it beyond the limits
of the ‘live’ experience and into the homes of countless listeners.
The phonograph was actually a by-product that Edison discovered when he tried to fi nd a solution to a problem he was attempting to solve: the need to ‘play back’
recorded telegraph messages. The device recorded onto a tinfoil sheet by using an up and down motion from a stylus. Edison had inadvertently opened the
door for reproducible music and speech. From the early 20th century on, recording and playing devices became more and more sophisticated, employing cylinders, discs and eventually computer hard drives to record, store and play back high-quality sound.
The biggest impact on music collecting and listening coincided with the shift to vinyl records in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
The dominance of this format lasted for some 30 years, until the advent of the portable cassette, compact disc and digital download.
However, the graphic conventions of vinyl packaging still hold a powerful place in the hearts of music collectors, and vinyl sales are actually increasing again.
6. Process and Materials
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6. Process and Materials
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Case Study 08: Mary
To actually get to that information, fans often have to search the Internet or use complex applications to help them. This kind of information was traditionally a part of the packaging, a part of the illustration or graphic design, built around a whole interactive experience.
Now that music comes packed into zip fi les, some critics argue that the younger generation of music listeners have lost the ability to listen to music carefully in order to enjoy it. A study by Professor Adrian North, of Heriot-Watt University, concluded that ‘…there is no more collecting music by album, there is only shoving as many single tracks onto the computer or MP3 player as possible. The difference to previous generations is that music in today’s mass media is much more accessible and has therefore lost its selectivity. Music changed into merchandise — produced, shared and consumed.’ However, some music listeners seem to hold on to tangible formats,
and want to keep their relationship with the tangible experience of the physical album. Designers may see an opportunity to refl ect aspects of the tangible object within the non-physical digital environment. Forgacs wanted to critique modern user interfaces that she felt did not value graphics and information, and ultimately to create a new interface that would give users a taste of the tangibility and collectability of the physical format.
The iPad is a new technology that allows users to interact with a computer using touch. Because of its size and weight, the iPad reminds us of actual material, such as notepads, clipboards or books. The user can fl ick, drag, drop, zoom in and out, turn the iPad, scroll, tab, pinch and rotate, all through the use of their fi ngers. As such, it triggers a strong connection to the object and is the perfect combination of the tangible format and the computer.
The Need for Information Information was always an important element within
‘traditional’ forms of record cover art. It was part of the design and was usually included in every album release. Generally, this would include not just information about the background to the music and the artist, but also lyrics, liner notes and other data of interest to the listener: production credits, recording details such as location
and dates, additional musicians and other personnel and so on. The booklet or record sleeve provided the listener with everything the artist wanted their listeners to know about the album.
During the early stages of her research, Forgacs conducted a survey of a wide number of regular music listeners, asking them what information they felt they needed when selecting
or listening to an album, and their views on the positive and negative aspects of both physical and digital formats (opposite page top). She also reviewed the most common interfaces used by listeners, and gathered feedback on the relative merits of each.
Once this information was collated and assembled, she was able to build simple charts to examine and highlight the ways in which users might benefi t from a more visual
and tangible experience when engaging with digital music players (opposite page bottom).
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6. Process and Materials
Mary Functionality
The fi nal application is designed especially for the iPad, and includes a lot of the touch features that an iPad has to offer. The navigation is easy to use and clear to understand: Forgacs felt that the iPad uniquely suited the application because it allows all of these features to assist its purpose:
to play music, give information, show graphics and organize libraries.
The design was initially worked up as a prototype model using notes and sequential drawings in the form of a storyboard (above left). Once defi ned, the interface was then developed digitally as a simple animation, demonstrating the sequence of choices open to the user (right and opposite page).
The visual style is very simple so that the functions of the player can be clearly understandable – iPad applications can’t be as complex as a program on a computer:
they need to be simple and intuitive without any unnecessary complexities. The use of big buttons and type was intended to maintain readability for all users, and a clear interface and simple menu
structure were utilized throughout.
The colour palette is quite neutral and allows for customization by the user (opposite bottom).
The library interface is created in stacks (opposite top). The albums sit on top of each other and in consequence suggest the idea of CD or record stacks from the user’s own collection. The library can be restacked to create smaller sub-libraries and groupings: for instance by genre, by favourite album, by importance, by room or by activity, thus enabling a feeling of involvement and control (above and right).
When an album is selected, the animation is made to appear as if the user is taking out a CD from a shelf: it pulls out and turns to reveal the content of the album.
With a quick click on the title the album slides back into the right place in the library. When the cover art is opened it is possible to zoom in and out and to turn pages and fl ick through the booklet (right and opposite middle). This shows the user the cover in the best possible way on the iPad, and gives a sense of control and organization.
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