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http://www-static.cc.gatech.edu/~keith/pubs/listeningIn-chi05.pdf

This article is about the Itunes music store and users ability to share music with each other over a local area network.  When a user purchases music, they have the option of sharing it at no cost to everyone else on their network.  This introduces a social network between several coworkers, family members, or students.  At the same time, some people would prefer not to let other people see what music they are listening to so there are privacy features as well.  The article is mostly about the socialization that occurs but mentions that music store.

http://kg6ek7cq2b.scholar.serialssolutions.com/log?L=KG6EK7CQ2B&D=EAP&U=http%3A%2F%2Fbert.lib.indiana.edu%3A2048%2Flogin%3Furl%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fopenurl.ebscohost.com%2Flinksvc%2Flinking.aspx%3Fgenre%3Darticle%26issn%3D0001-8899%26title%3DAdvertising%2Bage%26volume%3D74%26issue%3D23%26spage%3D22%26atitle%3DPlenty%2Bto%2Blearn%2Bfrom%2BApple%25E2%2580%2599s%2B%25E2%2580%2598near-perfect%25E2%2580%2599iTunes%2Bstore%26aulast%3DRothenberg%26date%3D2003

This article was about how simple music buying has become with the introduction of the Itunes music store.  It also talks about how Apple’s system of storing your credit card information allows for a truly one-click ordering system.  With the Itunes music store, it provides a fun, cheap alternative that benefits both consumers and record labels instead of piracy from file-sharing networks.

http://msl1.mit.edu/furdlog/docs/nytimes/2003-05-29_nytimes_rendezvous.pdf

This third article discusses the Itunes store digital media rights system.  It provides a comparison between how loose media rights will result in illegal distribution of bought music but too strict rights will cause people to seek an alternative means of getting their music.  It also brings up the same thing that the first article above did, the sharing of music over small networks.

My friend “bob” was willing to participate in sitting down and interacting with the Itunes store.  Bob has an Itunes account but almost never logs on.  I told him to take some time to browse the Itunes store and then find something to buy.  Using his laptop, he opened up Itunes.  He found the store pretty easily and began browsing.  He did get annoyed once when he typed something into the search box and it returned a bunch of TV shows rather than music.  Since he was using his computer, he was already logged into Itunes.  When he went to make a purchase, it asked him to log in again.  While this might have annoyed me, he actually liked that it verified his identity.  He was glad someone couldn’t steal his computer and automatically be able to make Itunes purchases using his billing information.  Overall Bob felt that the entire process was very straightforward.  All the images on the pages and the clean interface made the experience fun.  He said that he would use Itunes more because of the great experience if it wasn’t for the strict DRM policies.

My question would be, “Are users going to take the time to create their own homepage?”  If they are not aware or if they don’t know what it is, are they going to use it.  I would hope that the user would understand that they might be able to have a more enjoyable experience within the iTunes Store if they took the time to customize it to their own personal likings.

My specific question about the prototype would be “Why would a user use the “View Options” button instead of just going to “Preferences” in iTunes?” I mean, why not to put “Customize Homepage” or “View Options” settings into “Preferences” and doesn’t this button confuse most users leaving them with the feeling of duplicated settings? I think, unless instructed a user might not use that button, he simply might not know what the button does, even though it says “View Options”. It would be perfectly clear for users if the iTunes Store homepage has tips or quick tutorials along with “View Options” button. Otherwise, users may ignore the button and keep being unsatisfied with the Store homepage when they did not find customization options for the Store homepage.

The question I have about our design is is this something people will use as thier tastes in music and movies change.  I hope that the we find that our implication is easy to use and the ease of use will allow them and make them want to use it as their tastes change.  For instance when we ask them before if they have used Itunes before and after how easy or difficult it was.

My question is “Is anyone going to even notice a difference in the usability of the iTunes Store homepage?”

People are creatures of habit and if they are in the habit of going straight to the search bar when they get to the store (which is what we have inferred that a lot of people do from the interviews that we conducted) they might not even realize the changes that have occurred.

In the process of paper prototyping, we can find out how easily users (a sample of them anyway) navigate through the interface to complete the task of customizing the homepage. If it’s not blatantly obvious how to do so, we can assume that some people are not even going to notice the feature at all. If a user with specific instructions cannot figure out to complete the task in a timely manner, why would an average user think to seek out customization when it wasn’t there before? By observing ease of task completion we can gain some insight into how users are going to start to use the feature in the first place.

From our interviews we can see that there are alot of people who just use the search bar and ignores the front page completely. My question is that would people even bother to use the customization feature when they know its there. What is a good incentive for people to start customizing there own page?

From our prototype we can only test if people can successfuly navigate and maniplute the page when told to, and a few questions about what they would keep/delete on their own, but there is no reason for the users to customize if they don’t care in the first place.

Someone suggested before that we could do a tutorial video for the iTune store that plays the first time they login. I think that could be a good idea for a second paper prototype to show people the advantages to use the system, ie reducing clutter, more indivdualized content, etc.

The question that I have is, “Are people going to know about/how to customize the iTunes Store?”

The question if people are going to know about customizing can not be answered by the paper prototypes because we are going to be asking them to customize it.  There are many sites/things that can be customizable that people don’t take advantage of, i.e. iGoogle or a Palm or BlackBerry.  We have placed a button at the top of the page that says “View Options.”  By placing the button there we hope that these questions will not arise.  The “View Options” button will not only let people know who didn’t know they could customize the page, but also let others who do know they can customize the page customize the page easier and not have to hunt for the “View Options” button in the drop downs at the top of the page.

When conducting the paper prototypes we hope to find that the users see the “View Options” button at the top of the page first before they go hunting around the drop downs to customize the store.  We will ask the user to customize the page as quickly as they can.

Our paper prototype wants the user to change their options to content on the homepage to their liking with the iTunes Music Store.  A question that arises from this is “Will the user be able to find the options to change this?”

Our prototype adds a new button to iTunes Music Store to make this option more easily available, but the user could still easily overlook this button, since many different things on the iTunes Music Store can draw the users attention.  It would be important to make sure that this new button is in a place that is easily viewable, and would make the user actually want to click that button.  So size of the button and placement is very important when trying to get answers from the question above.

Our project is all about allowing customization of the ITunes music store and part of that includes cleaning up the page layout.  Getting rid of unwanted catagories, rearranging content boxes, etc.  As I was helping make the paper prototypes, I couldn’t help but think “Will this page look less cluttered and easier to use?”  When I looked over the entire ITunes store home page, I noticed not only all the content catagories but also the huge amount of ads.  Bright, colorful, and sometimes animated ads.  The paper prototype ads merely are labeled “Ad” but that really doesn’t accurately represent the page.  It’s one thing to see something that’s already identified itself as an ad with just a boring text label but it’s completely different when it’s purposely trying to get your attention.  Yes the user will be able to narrow down the catagories displayed on the page to what they want yet the ads are still going to be flashing at them, trying to distract the user.  There are obviously limits on how accurate of an analysis paper prototypes can provide and I just wonder how much of a difference in ease of use there’d be in real practice.