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Towards an ITunes Player for Music Performance and Usability Studies

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Added on  2019-09-20

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Contents Introduction 2 Aim 2 About the report 2 Set of Limitations 2 Experimental Design 3 Set of Participants 3 Considerations 3 Selection 3 Test Process 3 Tasks 4 Usability Metrics 4 Prioritization of Issues 4 Summary of overall findings 5 Performance Data 5 Usability Issues 6 Recommendations 10 Evaluation Discussion 10 References 12 Introduction ITunes is among the most popular music players, media management and digital content e-tailing platform in the world today. It is also expected that a framework will be obtained for evaluation of user experience and

Towards an ITunes Player for Music Performance and Usability Studies

   Added on 2019-09-20

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ContentsIntroduction...........................................................................................................................................2Aim........................................................................................................................................................2About the report.....................................................................................................................................2Set of Limitations..............................................................................................................................2Experimental Design.............................................................................................................................3Set of Participants..................................................................................................................................3Considerations...................................................................................................................................3Selection............................................................................................................................................3Test Process...........................................................................................................................................3Tasks.....................................................................................................................................................4Usability Metrics...................................................................................................................................4Prioritization of Issues...........................................................................................................................4Summary of overall findings.................................................................................................................5Performance Data..................................................................................................................................5Usability Issues......................................................................................................................................6Recommendations...............................................................................................................................10Evaluation Discussion.........................................................................................................................10References...........................................................................................................................................121
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IntroductionITunes is among the most popular music players, media management and digital content e-tailing platform in the world today. It has been on a steady rise since its inception nearly adecade ago. The rise in popularity was mainly attributed to the fact that it was a simple andintuitive player offering features and benefits that surpassed its competitors. However, overthe years it has grown into a mature platform offering many different features and solutionswhich it may not have been originally designed or thought for. As a result, it has becomebundled with several functionalities and performs several additional tasks than it used to doearlier. While the interface has grown revamps and overhauls several times since itsinception, many people find iTunes today a lot more difficult to handle than they used to. Thepaper will present a usability testing of iTunes with a pre-defined set of users and would alsopresent a summary and analysis thereafter.AimThe main aim of this usability testing is to assess the usability of iTunes from the perspectiveof general users performing typical tasks. At the end of this test, a conclusion can be drawn tothe degree of usability of iTunes and what are the recommended solutions for the overallusability problems reported.About the reportSet of LimitationsThe nature of this study is qualitative and exploratory and therefore, the primary goal is not tofocus upon the results that are generalized. Also, the objective is not to compare and rate thesystems on the basis of the information collected. The main objective is to come up withadvanced insights in the mechanisms that users adopt to evaluate their experience. It is alsoexpected that a framework will be obtained for evaluation of user experience and the samemay be applied in the evaluation studies (Kim, 2015) carried out in the future. Theparticipants involved in the research were the students from the field of Information Studies.It might appear that the results obtained at the end of the research may be biased for the savvyusers on the basis of their area of expertise. However, a number of trends and patterns that arerevealed from the interviews highlight that user satisfaction and heuristics have a highercorrelation with the persona type as compared to system expertise. 2
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Experimental DesignA random method of allocation was chosen for the number of participants to understand andvalidate the different experimental situations. The method was adopted to estimate theusability as the interface interaction issues could be easily understood. Heuristic evaluationwas not carried out since the full proof evidence of the usability issues was required. Set of ParticipantsConsiderationsThe age group preferred for the study will be young adults and the ones in late twenties. Theactual audience may differ from the preferred group; however, this age group was preferredas it was assumed that they will provide (Lee and Price, 2017) enhanced contribution in theusage of the improved delivery mechanisms. The gender of the user and the visually impairedusers were not the factors that were involved. SelectionThe selection of audience was done through the Facebook groups in a random manner with acomplete count as five. An even gender distribution was carried out and the participants werealso required to gain certain knowledge regarding the iTunes environment. It was a must forparticipants to have at least one iOS device such as iPhone, iPod Touch or an iPad. Majrotiyof them did not have an advanced technical knowledge. There were two participants that hada strong technical background and the others did not have a sound knowledge of the technicalgadgets. The average age of the participants was observed as 30 with the youngest participantas 24 years old and the oldest as 32 years old. In a span of seven days, five people took partin the user tests. Two users out of five were new to iTunes with less than songs in theirlibrary while two were advanced users having over 1,000 songs in the library. One of theusers was intermediate user that had more than 1,000 songs. Windows was the primaryoperating system for three of these participants. The range of time spent in the usage ofiTunes also varied with one user having less than five months of experience while the otherhad over 24 months of experience.Test ProcessThe test process would be carried out using audio-visual means over the internet. A liveTeamViewer session would be used to observe the user’s interaction with the system. Theestimated and actual duration of the tests would be noted. It would be made sure that theusers have latest version of the application. The tests would be carried out during weekends3
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and based on user’s obligations. Notes would be taken during the test and appropriatefeedback from the users would be noted.The primary task of the observer was to capture the notes regarding the experience andreaction of the test user along with the (Chapter 14: Usability testing and field studies, 2009)first impression of the software. The notes were taken with the aid of pen and paper and therewere no audio/video recordings taken. Such a practice was taken so that the users werecomfortable. The users were also asked to fill out a questionnaire regarding their experience along with aninformal discussion regarding the experience with the software. TasksUsing iTunes to play musicLoading music files to iTunesCreate a PlaylistSync a Playlist with an iOS DeviceManage an iOS device using iTunesUsability MetricsSuccess Rate In a given scenario, was the user able to complete the assigned task?Error Rate Which errors tripped up users most? These can be divided into two types: critical andnoncritical. Critical errors will prevent a user from (Isaac, 1995) completing a task, whilenoncritical errors will simply lower the efficiency with which they complete it. Time to Completion How much time did it take the user to complete the task? This can be particularly usefulwhen determining how your product compares with your competitors (if you’re testing both).Prioritization of Issues0 Superficial usability problem: may be easily overcome by user or occurs extremelyinfrequently. Does not need to be fixed for next release unless extra time is available. 4
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