music UX

IOS 5 - new Library button, but playlist creation still an issue

2011-10-26T09:34:00.000-07:00

YouTube's (lack of) error handling

2011-09-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

YouTube is great for so many reasons - mostly the ability to play any song on demand for free. In light of the all of the free streaming music (Spotify, Mog and Rdio) services out there, Youtube has been doing this for a long time. Create playlists, share music with your friends, watch videos on your iPhone or a device connected to your TV - you can take the free music wherever you want.

I recently found a video for 'How to Live Alone (With the Dogs)' by The Pernice Brothers. Since their collection is hard to find (at least on Amazon and iTunes, I haven't called Laurie's in Lincoln Square yet), you can imagine how excited I was to be able to find it, play it several times and even share it with friends.

After watching the video, I wanted to leave a comment telling the world where I first heard it! But what should have been an easy task wasn't a good experience at all.

When it comes to usability in products, my favorite issue is error prevention and handling. That is, how a good design can prevent errors and provide a clear way to fix them.

After typing my comment and clicking 'Post', I didn't expect to get an error message. And I was really frustrated when the message only read 'Error, try again'. That's it? How would I fix it? I tried again (and again and again) and couldn't leave the comment because I didn't know what to do next. Error messages should describe what action the user must take to fix it. I never got to leave a comment. I went onto other songs, other things. What a waste of time!

Always provide clear, detailed error messages - frustrated users will quickly leave your site or app and discover music someplace else.

5 reasons why Spotify does social media well

2011-07-18T20:07:00.001-07:00

Spotify was recently launched to the US audience after (literally) years of waiting. The UI is great and hasn't changed much since I reviewed it a while back. In short, it's clean, efficient and easy to use building on the familiar look of iTunes and other on-demand apps. One thing i had not looked at until now is Spotify's social component. A major aspect of most music apps, they've done a really good job with its user experience for several reasons:

1. Quick access to your connections in a persistent People panel on the right side from which you can access their playlists (the location makes your friends feel more integrated than in other apps like Pandora, although that may change when the new Pandora UI is released),

2. Ability to efficiently share via several social media from the same modal dialog - the usual suspects Facebook and Twitter are here but also IM and Spofity, of course,

3. Bright blue color to distinguish the primary action buttons (Share, Send Track) from secondary button (your eye is drawn to the main call to action)

4. Use of autocomplete (i.e. predictive text) when typing in the To: field to add connections quickly and

5. Flexibility to share from several areas of the interface including the album art or the song list

I haven't really used social media in music apps until now. Spotify has made it easy and fun to share my music (including the King of Limbs!) with my friends. I may even upgrade to the paid version soon.

Google Doodle tribute to Les Paul

2011-06-09T15:40:00.000-07:00

In honor of (what would have been) Les Paul's 96th birthday, today's Google Doodle is an interactive, recordable, electric guitar. Paul, after whom the Gibson Les Paul guitar is named, was one of the first electric guitars and he designed one of the first solid body electric models. He is also one of the few artists with a stand-along exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Google Doodle, found at google.com, is typically an illustration created for one day to (among other things) celebrate a holiday or the birthday of someone famous.

You simply hover over the strings to strum and create a song. A record button lets you save your song and send it to someone and you can even play back your own song while playing over it (like the overdubbing Paul made famous in the '40s). Click on the Doodle? Well, that will show you search results for Les Paul. Several music fans have recorded their own songs today including this one - 'Hey Jude' by The Beatles. Easy to use and non-callus forming, it's a very fun and engaging way to play the guitar and celebrate Paul's birthday!

Slacker and the inspiration of small screens

2010-10-29T12:28:00.001-07:00

Slacker is a great, genre-based internet radio application. Similar to Pandora, it delivers songs to the user in a random order (vs. on-demand listening applications like Mog and Grooveshark) and offers all sorts of customization and social networking features. In contrast to Pandora, the mobile version offers caching of music for offline listening (very cool!).

Slacker also has a strong presence in channels like IPTV, mobile, desktop and (most likely very soon, to compete with Pandora) a version for the car. However, in terms of user experience, the channels differ.

The desktop UI is clunky and cluttered with several calls to action on the main 'player' screen - they cram everything in into one view and it's not clear where to begin. Meanwhile the mobile UI is pleasant, simple and provides only the major functionality on the main screen. It is a minimalist design with very few buttons and choices for the user to make; other less-frequently used functionality is deeper in the application.

Whether this design is intentional or due to the natural constraints of a small screen, it works. Not only is the desktop design less pleasing, the inconsistency in the look and feel (across channels) makes it difficult to learn the overall Slacker model. They should strongly consider a more consistent design across channels! In addtion to simplifying the desktop UI, another improvement could be a small, simple app (similar to mobile) available from the web browser - like Pandora One.

Overall, when building music applications in different channels, designers should look first to small screens as inspiration. The simple design of mobile applications (like Slacker) can help them translate to a great user experience on a larger screen.

Update: Evolver.fm has written about a new Slacker mobile UI here...http://evolver.fm/2010/10/27/slacker-app-pandora-spotify-iphone-android-blackberry/#more-364.

The new look of The Big Takeover

2010-08-20T19:34:00.000-07:00

The Big Takeover is a 30-year old, bi-annual music magazine written and published in NYC by the enthusiastic Jack Rabid. It includes some great record and concert reviews and is an important voice in the independent music scene. More than anything (at least for me), it's THE place to discover new music. The BT website is a good companion which features the one of the main revenue drivers: subscriptions to the magazine!

The homepage just underwent a redesign that drastically improved the layout. The page now uses clear section headers (Concerts, Recordings) which logically match the main navigation options and the use of white space helps users to direct their attention appropriately.

However, it's not clear why the navigation is placed above the ads away from the content. Although the location of Search meets expectations, the navigation should be closer to the content. Moving the navigation below the ads (suggested wireframe below) would create a more efficient experience for the user (less distance for the mouse to move, eyes to travel) while simply increasing its visibility.

Overall, the homepage redesign is a major improvement and I look forward to other new pages (including the subscription workflow) soon.

Using 4AD's search wheel

2010-05-13T09:17:00.000-07:00

4ad is a British independent record label that began in 1979. Its former and current artists include the Pixies, Lush, The National, Bauhaus and Pale Saints. If that's not enough, the website is full of video, streams and downloads of their latest music from the homepage and flexible navigation including a prominent search box and a right-panel rolodex style for finding artists alphabetically and chronologically. There is also an interactive wheel used to search by artist or year. However, some components of the wheel are unclear and not useful.

Without any instruction, the wheel immediately suggests (by changing the mouse pointer from arrow to hand) that you can click and drag to a particular year or an artist; a corresponding white (or black handle) lets the user find specific information efficiently while a red handle (the 'Randomise Leaver') selects random artists from their catalogue. But the purpose of the red rectangle that contains some sort of number is not clear and the ABCD control (allowing you to go a letter page) on the top continually gave me 'no entry' when I used it.

Come to think of it, I wouldn't find either function useful when searching for music. Although the quick link to Wheel Help is visible, 4ad could improve the already good user experience of the wheel by simply removing the unnecessary components. This use of functional minimalism would make the wheel less complicated while not compromising its core functionality - finding great 4ad music.

Redesigning the MySpace music player

2010-03-29T11:48:00.001-07:00

Originally a major competitor to Facebook, MySpace has evolved from a being a place for 'friendships' to an important site in digital music. Like Facebook, artists can create profile pages for fans to follow but artists can also embed songs into a music player for fans to listen to. This functionality has really opened the door for discovering new music (especially for new artists who don't have a label or a means of distribution and marketing). However, MySpace's music player (above) suffers from some usability issues including small controls and an inefficient screen layout.

When advancing through a song, users have to move a very small slider control that requires unnecessary precision. An improved, larger control would be much easier to click and drag than the current small rectangle shape. Also, the two-row layout of songs in the artist's queue is inefficiently designed. A maximum of only five songs can be listed in the queue at one time and then users have to scroll to see more. Compressing the layout of the queue slightly (suggested wireframe below) by using a one-row design would maintain the song information (song name, artist name, # of plays) and '+' control while displaying more songs and improving the user experience of the player.

The MOG slider

2010-03-13T20:33:00.000-08:00

MOG is a social networking site for people obsessed with music. In addition to connecting users with similar music tastes, they can create blog posts and manage their own profile pages. The site recently launched MOG All-Access which provides (for $5 per month) unlimited artist radio and on-demand listening (choosing any song you want at any time).

After searching for and selecting an artist or song, the music player launches containing one of the best features of the MOG user experience - a slider control that lets users narrow or expand the variety of an artist radio station. Initially, the slider is positioned all the way to the left playing only songs by that artist but, by moving the slider to the right, it incrementally increases the amount of similar artists in the queue. It works really well and gives users effecient control over their music while letting them also discover new artists.

Streaming KEXP on the iPhone

2010-01-12T21:18:00.000-08:00

KEXP-FM is a listener-supported radio station in Seattle specializing in alternative and independent music. People (including me) listen to the station from all over the world and, recently, they launched their application for the iPhone. One thing I really love about it is the ability to create playlists and add songs to favorites. These features create a unique experience not available while streaming from the KEXP.org site.

Despite the great new features, the relationship with iTunes is familiar and frustrating. Similar to other iPhone music apps including Wilco's, clicking on 'Buy on iTunes' from the Song Info screen abruptly ends the stream and takes the user to iTunes providing no clear way to return to the stream. The inability to 'multitask' on the iPhone may discourage users from clicking the iTunes link knowing that their stream will end and they'll have to manually re-open the KEXP app.

KEXP could improve the app's experience by:

warning the user that clicking on the link will force them to leave the KEXP app but that they can always return quickly from the KEXP icon on the homescreen OR
imploring Apple to modify iTunes so users can always return back to the app they were just using (not likely).

Changes like these would make me and Wilco happy.

The selection model of Lala

2009-12-14T15:18:00.000-08:00

Lala is an online music service that, among other things, lets you create a free collection of music matching the songs you have on your hard drive. That means you can play all of your own music wherever you have access to Lala. Although the site has a clean design with some great features, it is missing some important functionality which impacts the overall user experience.

The music player is fixed on the top of the screen so if if you're reading a long, scrolling bio page, the player controls are always visible. On the homepage, the call to action of searching for an artist is prominent and the search feature uses autocomplete, listing results really quickly.

But the site lacks important functionality. While looking at the new Flaming Lips album, The only way to add the 18 songs to my collection was by using an 'add' button on each row. The screen does not provide a way to multi-select songs or 'select all', an efficient way to add multiple songs. However, when browsing my collection, I was able to perform actions like 'delete' and 'edit' on multiple rows. The inability to multi-select on one screen and overall inconsistent selection model may frustrate users while making learning for some new users difficult.

Google's music search results

2009-11-27T10:58:00.001-08:00

Google has recently changed the way they list their music search results. Now, when you type in the name of an artist, the first result is a list of playable songs with links to purchase them and view artist details. The new feature is useful and engaging and gives users a preview of music without having to navigate to different sites. The 'Listen on' links took me where I expected including Pandora which brought me directly to the artist bio page. This is a great feature which improves the experience of searching for music.

Interactive learning at Experience Music Project

2009-10-27T09:20:00.000-07:00

Experience Music Project is a music museum located in Seattle. A few steps from the Space Needle, visitors can learn about music history and instruments by way of well-designed, interactive exhibits.

The 'Northwest Passage' chronicles music in the Pacific Northwest from early jazz in the 30s to more recent artists Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Sleater-Kinney. Video interviews, concert footage and listening stations are available along the way.

The 'Jimi Hendrix Experience' has an interactive timeline, large monitors showing video, ipod listening stations (built into side tables at the edge of a couch) and a soundboard station where you can learn how to mix music (above). The station intuitively combines a touchscreen and hard buttons that make learning easy.

The 'Sound Lab' has a variety of real instruments kids and adults can play by way of audio and simple on-screen instruction and 'Spaced Out', a collection sci-fi album cover art also has a theremin you can play. Just wave your hands to control the volume and tones! The variety of interaction makes the museum a great user experience.

Modest Mouse focuses the user's attention

2009-09-20T22:14:00.000-07:00

Modest Mouse has a new collection of B-sides from their past two releases (Good News for People Who Love Bad News and We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank). On their web site, you can listen to the tracks by clicking a very prominent 'Launch Player' link on the top of the homepage.

When I first used the Player, I had trouble accessing the songs but was quickly presented a popup indicating that the service was temporarily unavailable. What I liked is that when the popup opened, everything else in the window (behind the popup) became blurry. This method of focusing the user's attention on one window, though not revolutionary (it's used on both the Mac and Windows OS), is helpful and takes the cognitive burden off users.

Quickly finding music with Spotify

2009-08-07T20:30:00.000-07:00

I don't make many predictions but I really think that Spotify will change music. Developed by a group of folks from Sweden, it is a P2P streaming music application with a library of some 6 million songs that you can listen to whenever you have the app running (desktop or mobile). With minimal advertising in the free version, think of it as Hulu for music. Later this year, it will be availble to users in the US (licensing issues) including an iPhone app which could really affect the whole notion of paying for music downloads.

Why is it so good? Well, you can listen to whatever you want, create playlists and even cache songs to listen to while you're not connected, but most importantly, the UI is clean and easy to use making the user experience great. Spotify has a good visual layout; screen density is low and navigation is inituitive and flexible helping users find music quickly. On the left side, for example, the Search box, recently saved searches and the album cover link each represent important navigation elements.

Also, the Search box and 'New Playlist' link are very visible and prominent functionalities for users with those specific goals in mind. Although using the Radio filter is cumbersome (later post), overall, Spotify is nice and I'm really looking forward to seeing it on mobile devices soon.

Listening to Guy Garvey's Finest Hour

2009-07-26T08:28:00.000-07:00

Guy Garvey is the lead singer of one of my favorite bands, Elbow, and every Sunday, I make breakfast while listening to Guy Garvey's Finest Hour online at BBC's 6 Music. Effective screen layout and clear labeling make finding and listening to this weekly program a simple and great user experience.

From the BBC homepage, I navigated to the 6 Music site and program page easily. Overall, the site uses white space and orange links effectively to help listeners find what they're looking for and clear labels in the navigation menu (e.g. 'Presenters and Shows') guided me right to the program page. I selected the 'Sunday' link on the right side which launched a separate BBC Player application allowing me to listen to the show. The Player itself has main tabs including 'More Like This' which recommends other 6 Music programs like Guy's. Check it out whilst you make your breakfast.

The transactional flow of Sub Pop Records

2009-05-13T16:18:00.000-07:00

Sub Pop is a legendary record label based in Seattle that has signed great bands like The Shins, The Postal Service and Nirvana. They recently celebrated their 2oth anniversary and they have a great site full of artist info, photography and a Listen feature which allows users to stream music. However, when purchasing music, the transactional flow of the site is confusing.

After adding an album (in MP3S format) by the Vaselines to the the shopping cart, I noticed several options including login, create an account, a delete icon, a link to the album and a checkout icon. However, a few of these items were unclear. I'm not sure why one would want to create an account (from the shopping cart) and there is no helpful information on the subsequent 'Sign Up' screen to explain the benefit or creating an account. The login and account options would be better placed outside the context of the shopping cart area or simply introduced at the beginning of the checkout process.

I finally clicked the Checkout icon and began the transaction process. But on the third screen, I was asked to enter a shipping address! I thought I was downloading the digital MP3S format so why would I need to provide a shipping address? The site should contextually recognize that I am purchasing a digital version of an album and bypass the shipping address screen. This type of confusing transactional flow will frustrate users and may cause them to abandon the shopping cart altogether.

Sub Pop should minimize the number of choices in the Account area by removing login and create an account and make the flow more contextual by requiring users to enter only the information they need for that purchase. These changes would improve the overall music user experience of the site.

(Sub Pop Records gave me permission to use the image.)

Creating an account and backing up with Mozy

2009-04-05T19:54:00.000-07:00

Mozy is an online data backup service perfect for those worried about losing their digital music library (like me). Users can get 2 GB of storage for no charge and unlimited storage for $4.95. Creating a new account and backing up data is very easy and, more importantly, the clear calls to action and simple workflow make for a great overall experience.

The cleanly designed homepage and prominent 'Sign up now!' button clearly tell users what they can do right from the start. Creating an account was very fast (about 3 minutes); I chose the monthly payment option, presented credit card information and quickly downloaded the application to my Mac. Once the setup was completed, I was able to configure my backup by checking boxes for each type of data (iTunes library, photos, etc.) and begin the backup process. Although the first backup can take several days, I'll sleep better knowing that my Smiths bootlegs are now safe and secure.

What's driving the Mini's audio system?

2009-01-25T18:34:00.001-08:00

Two colleagues of mine (Naseem Hasan and Jared Jeffers) and I recently conducted an evaluation of the Mini Clubman's dashboard user interface. A good portion of the 'eval' focused on the Mini's powerful and feature-rich audio system.

Most of the controls for the audio system and the car's computerized settings are situated near the oversized analog speedometer. Although most controls are well-labeled (including 'Audio' for switching modes and 'Main Menu' for navigation), the system suffers from an inefficient layout of controls and poor error recovery.

The main selection dial for the audio system is located just below the FM tuner buttons and could be easily mistaken for the separate volume control, which sits below the CD player outside of the main area of interaction. This volume control seems disconnected from the rest of the audio system.

The system has direct iPod and iPhone connectivity providing users versatility and flexibility with inputs for both auxiliary and USB cables that can double as device chargers. However, when we tried using the iPhone in both AUX and USB modes, a message read "This accessory [cable] is not made to work with the iPhone". The Mini's user manual says that the cable is only made to work with some iPhone models, but it does not say which ones it works with or where to find out which models it does work with. It is important for users to be able to recover from errors and build trust in the systems that they use.

You can read the full article here.

Watching music videos with Comcast On-Demand

2009-01-12T20:19:00.000-08:00

Comcast provides bonus music video content and concert footage through their 'On-Demand' channel but the 'Music' section is difficult to navigate and lacks flexibility.

From the 'Music' link, there are 20 options including 'All Videos A-L' and 'MTV2' with all sorts of submenus but, without a breadcrumb, navigation is unclear. Once I found a video I liked (by Interpol), I couldn't remember how I found it.

After a video was done playing, I was immediately brought back to the previous menu but at the beginning of the alphabetical video list. I expected to be brought back to my previous location in the list to watch more videos by the same artist. I also wanted to be able to select multiple videos rather than selecting only one a time. This inflexibility causes frustration; breadcrumbs and multiple selection would make 'On-Demand' a better music user experience.

Tagging songs using Shazam

2008-12-24T10:27:00.000-08:00

Shazam is a free mobile application that identifies music playing anywhere. The company calls themselves the 'world's leading mobile music discovery provider'. When you hear a song you like, you simply place your mobile device near your radio, TV, a film or in a store and hit the 'Tag Now' button. Shazam analyzes the song and, in less than fifteen seconds, indicates the song, album and artist and allows you to share the 'tag' with someone, view artist discographies and biographies and watch videos from YouTube. You can also download the song from iTunes and add photos to your tags from where you hear the song.

Shazam is amazingly accurate. While using an iPhone in my car, it recognized 'Bluebeard' by the Cocteau Twins (from the radio) and 'Black Tambourine' by Beck (from a CD). I have to say, however, that the iTunes download function was hard to find. I expected to find it on the Tag details screen but was surprised to have to drill several levels into the artist discography while having to remember which album the song was from. Users of Shazam would benefit from having the iTunes function right on the Tag details screen.

Using the Honda Fit audio system

2008-09-29T13:02:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite features of the versatile and economical Honda Fit Sport is its 160 watt audio system.

Not only does it sound great, but I can plug my iPod directly into the auxiliary jack and listen to music that way. The Fit combines the iPod integration with an interesting interactive console. It is designed well: the display is bright, easy to read and frequently used buttons are placed near the driver including a large knob used for changing modes (aux, cd, fm/am) and sound settings.

When I first saw the knob, I thought it was a bit obnoxious but the more I used it, I realized that since I change modes often, it was nice to have it nearby and prominent. Also, the large buttons make it easy to hit the 'target' while driving. One gripe is that sometime my palm will hit the center button (used for volume and power) and shut the system off. I just wish I had waited longer for the available navigation system. Overall, the audio system provides a great music user experience.

Pandora on the iPhone

2008-09-22T10:50:00.000-07:00

I have been using Pandora for a while and their site is great. It's clean and easy to use and allows you to rate songs using a 'thumbs up/down' scale. You can also bookmark and purchase the songs you like (through iTunes). So, I thought I'd try the new Pandora application for the iPhone.

Installing Pandora was easy. Although initiating the install was weird (you have to hit a 'Free' button which then changes to an 'Install' button), overall, the process was simple.

One thing I really liked was being asked for my Pandora login to make the process easier. "Already a Pandora user?...even easier, just login...Pandora for the iPhone is fully integrated with Pandora on the Web". The application imported all of my stations quickly.

Using Pandora was just as easy. Although functionality is a bit limited when compared to the web version (for example, song, artist and album info isn't available), it works great as a 'walk up and use' application. Additionally, the 'look and feel' matches the iPhone well and the album cover art is prominent. Just like the website, it takes one click for you to listen to your stations.

Adding songs to an imeem playlist

2008-08-17T21:35:00.000-07:00

Last night, I found this site called imeem.com. It's sort of a social networking site where the focus is music and video sharing. I created a playlist of songs to embed in my blog but then found that a few of the songs were a little choppy. Today, I went back into the playlist on imeem to remove the choppy songs. I found an 'organize music playlist' button which allowed me to rearrange and delete songs but NOT add new ones.

I looked for an hour and couldn't find a way to add new songs to my playlist!

This is really frustrating. An 'add songs' button would be perfect and should be located either on the playlist or 'organize music playlist' popup.

Embedding a video from YouTube

2008-08-14T21:06:00.000-07:00

Embedding this Radiohead video from YouTube was fairly easy. I found the simple instructions under...

Blogger Help > Multi-Media Blogging > Video

Google's Blogger and YouTube (so far) work together pretty well. Below is the video I embedded called 'House of Cards'.