Focus Group Highlights

Focus Group Highlights (July)

Technological Issues

Some music was tagged incorrectly.

“Some tracks that were playing were incorrectly named. ie. the track playing and the track/artist title displayed did not match” (U33, U34, U37)

Certain artists were played more often then others

“Once my station started playing Flogging Molly that was the only artist chosen for quite a while.” (U36)

Sound quality of music was low

“The quality of the music was extremely low, nowhere near cd quality. This is definitely a big detraction. Music was almost painful to listen to at this encoding rate.” (U33, U36)

People wanted more stations to choose from

“The selections were limited though which made me realize that one could get lucky/unlucky depending on how many other drivers were in range and whether they had good taste in music.” (U38, U36)

Findings (both positive and negative)

Navigation was confusing at first, but eventually understandable. Unlabeled buttons made the navigation scheme even more difficult.

“The buttons had no corresponding meaning, making it confusing to determine what exactly they did, although after some use it seemed that the R/L arrows changed between stations and the Up Down arrows changed between different style groups of stations.” (U33)

“I was never clear exactly how to get to another station.” (U34)

“It took a while to figure out what the unlabeled controls were.” (U36)

“I wanted left arrow to take me back one song, right arrow to take me forward one song, and up and down to switch me between stations in some sort of preset sequence.” (U34)

“Might be nice if words were present or something to explain?” (U35)

“I wished there were labels or mouse-overs or something to tell me what the arrow buttons did.” (U34)

“I thought the left would take me back a song right would take me forward a song but sometimes they seemed to change my station.” (U34)

“Labels would have been most helpful.” (U35)

“Word prompts with the arrows would make navigation much much easier.” (U33)

“Something to indicate that the vertical controls indicated categories while the horizontal controls were individual stations would have been useful.”(U36)

“I didn't think the up and down arrows did anything. They just changed the color of the screen.” (U37)

“It would be good to have clear categories for each direction, rather than the same categories no matter which direction--wastes time navigating.” (U38)

Desire to see what was on other stations without actually changing stations

“It would be nice to see what songs were broadcasting on the others without changing the station.” (U37)

Desire for a “more like this” function (darn gm-juke!)

“It would have been nice if there was a way to say yes I liked this a lot I'd like to hear more like this.” (U34)

People enjoyed using the prototype to listen to music

“After a while the songs on my station were just what I wanted to listen to.” (U37)

“It was nice to listen to my own station--music I'm guaranteed to like, in addition to the other choices.” (U38)

“The system was easy to use and it was nice to listen commercial-free.” (U34)

The prototype allowed opportunities to listen to new music

“Most times when choosing between a cd and radio, I prefer radio because I've heard all my music before and like to hear new stuff or stuff I am not used to listening to.” (U35)

“I did hear a couple songs I hadn't heard before, so it was good to hear new stuff other than what the radio stations choose to play.” (U38)

Didn’t realize they were actually broadcasting

“I am not quite certain I was broadcasting. I heard what I assumed was my station but have no idea if others heard it.” (U33)

“I didn't notice that i was doing it really.” (U35)

“I was unaware of anything that controlled what I was broadcasting so after a while I just ignored it and concentrated on listening.” (U36)

Desire for more control with own station.

“I wish I'd been able to have more hands-on direct control over what was played. I figured if I had my own station, it would almost always play music I wanted to hear.” (U34)

“Having some control over my own playlist would be useful … Skipping to the next song or removing them from the list would be preferable to trying to find another station until that song ended.” (U36)

Disinterest in broadcasting to others

“I didn't really care if other people were listening frankly. I was mainly interested in my own listening.” (U34)

Prototype is easy to use

“The system is pretty easy to use. I like it.” (U37)

Prototype is simple

“I guess it was frustrating because I was expecting lots of different choices and there weren’t' really a ton.” (U35)

Collaborative filtering would be nice, but wasn’t possible with only 6 stations

“It would be nice to tailor to my tastes more and not have to navigate in all directions to find something I like.” (U38)

“I'd like to have my station play more of the kinds of songs I say I like.” (U34) Participant didn’t like what his station actually played.

Icons (diamonds, audience, signal) were confusing

“The icons were confusing. They had nothing to do with the station.” (U37)

“I didn't quite get what the match, audience, and signal were about.” (U35)

“The diamonds, signal, and other icons would be more useful if I knew just what they were indicating.” (U36)

Match:

“What are the diamonds showing a match of? Is it the over all tastes between me and the broadcaster, or how likely the song will fit with my tastes or something else?” (U36)

“I wish I'd been able to click on Match to change the match to what *I* think it is rather than what the preset thought it was for me.” (U34)

Signal:

“What does signal mean? Received signal strength (seems odd over a computer network), available bandwidth (didn't seem to change the performance regardless of the signal indicated), or something else entirely?” (U36)

Arrangement of information on screen was appropriate

“The most important info was large and where it should be.” (U35)

Station names and messages were interesting, but not essential

“While not vital, were kinda fun--shows a bit of personality and could definitely turn me on/off to the station before evening listening.” (U38)

Album name would be nice to know

“It would be nice to know the album name in addition to the title and musician.” (U38)

Song time might be useful

“It would have been nice to know how far along a song was when I just jumped into it by changing station whether it was right near the end or the beginning or what.” (U34)

Label of “Eclectic” might be problematic

“Trying to figure out what the other stations were also was confusing all of them seemed to be labeled Eclectic.” (U36) This could be due to the fact that there were 5 eclectic and 1 rock stations.

“Category names, while a good idea, are tough--almost everything seemed to be eclectic.” (U38)

19 July 2004GM-Network1