Digital Music Services

Serco ExperienceLab | Are UXperienced?

1

Are UXperienced? Evaluating the user experience of digital music services

David Loughlin

August 2009

Email: [email protected]

Tel: 020 7421 6481

RESTRICTED COMMERCIAL


2

Contents

1. Introduction .....................................................................................................3

2. Services ............................................................................................................4

3. Downloading ....................................................................................................5

3.1. Finding songs ...............................................................................................5

3.2. Buying songs ................................................................................................7

3.3. Digital Rights Management (DRM) ..............................................................8

4. Streaming .......................................................................................................10

4.1. Selecting and queuing songs......................................................................10

4.2. Radio style streaming.................................................................................11

5. Organising ......................................................................................................13

5.1. Metadata ...................................................................................................13

5.2. Searching, grouping and sorting ................................................................14

5.3. Playlists ......................................................................................................16

5.4. Love and Ratings ........................................................................................17

6. Discovering.....................................................................................................19

6.1. Song based recommendations...................................................................19

6.2. Library based recommendations ...............................................................20

7. Sharing ...........................................................................................................21

7.1. Sharing a library .........................................................................................21

7.2. Sharing songs and playlists ........................................................................22

7.3. Musical communities .................................................................................22

8. Conclusion......................................................................................................23

About ExperienceLab ....................................................................................24


3

1. Introduction The growth of online music services has changed the way that people discover, buy, organise and listen to music. Since the emergence of widespread illegal file sharing with Napster in the late ‘90s, the Internet has played an increasingly key role in the way people access music. The iTunes Store was the first service to prove the viability of selling music online and many services have attempted to challenge their dominance in the market since.

Various business models have emerged which attempt to change the way listeners pay for the music they listen to. While pricing structure is an important factor in the success of an online music service but it is not the whole story. The way that a service‘s technology supports customer listening behaviour plays a key role. This is evidenced by the swift success of Spotify and the equally swift demise of SpiralFrog ‐ services with similar business models but very different user experiences. This article takes a look at some of the UK’s leading online music providers. It looks at the activities they support: downloading; streaming; organising; discovering; and sharing. It examines the interfaces that support those activities. It looks at what can be learnt from existing services and offers tips for developers moving into this competitive market.


4

2. Services This article looks at four of the leading suppliers of online music services in the UK: iTunes, Spotify, Last.fm, and Nokia Music. They offer a range of services including downloads; streaming; song, artist and event recommendations; methods of organising a digital library; methods of sharing music and musical tastes; and integration with mobile technology.

The services are typically supported by several components: a media player application; an application for managing a music library; an online store; and an online community. These components are integrated in different ways according to a service’s particular niche. iTunes and Nokia music for example provide users with a single application which is used for all activities. Last.fm on the other hand includes an application whose primary role is to monitor listening habits on other services (e.g., iTunes, Spotify and Windows Media Player). The majority of Last.fm user activity takes place on the website, accessed via the user’s own browser. Spotify provides users with an application for accessing the library and organising playlists, but provides access to 3rd party services for other activities (e.g., sharing and downloading).

In supporting a wide range of activities across several component parts, clear, consistent and well labelled icons and buttons help users to understand what can be done where. These work best when supported by mouse‐over text.

Consistent, well labelled controls provide users with access to common actions from different parts of an interface. Greying out controls that cannot be used in a particular situation helps users to understand what can be done where and when.


5

3. Downloading Most online music services provide some method of downloading songs. Once a song has been downloaded it is stored on a user’s computer and, subject to Digital Rights Management (DRM) restrictions, can be transferred to portable devices, burnt to CD, shared and played. Two of the four services looked at here (iTunes and Nokia Music) allow users to buy songs and download them from an integrated online store. Last.fm allows users to download some (usually unsigned) songs for free, but directs users to other online stores to download pay‐for songs. Spotify also directs users to 3rd party stores to download songs.

3.1. Finding songs Before downloading music, users must be able to find the songs they are looking for. Effective search and browse functions are essential for a successful online music service. The services all provide a search function that is available from all parts of the interface – it is always onscreen. The location of the search function is also usually consistent. The way the search function is implemented varies across the services. iTunes and Spotify provide a single search bar that looks for a search term wherever it appears. This means that the target item is very likely to be included in the search results, but does have the disadvantage that unwanted items are sometimes returned e.g., tribute compilations. Spotify allows users to filter results by items in the Artist or Title fields which is helpful. Nokia Music provides separate search boxes for artist and title searches which share a single search button. This gives the user more control, however it is not immediately clear how the two search boxes interact – they operate as <Artist> AND <Title>. iTunes offer this functionality under the banner Power Search. Last.fm provides a single search box with an additional mandatory dropdown box (the default is Music) which specifies the type of content to be searched (iTunes provide this functionality in their Power Search option) results can then be filtered by artist, title or album.

It should be possible for users to find items where their search terms appear in specific fields (artist, title, etc) either by specifying these before hand or through filtering the search results. Where multiple content types are available, it should be possible for users to specify the type of content returned.

All of the services provide a search box, that can be accessed from anywhere in the provider’s environment.

Search results are presented quite differently by each of the services. The iTunes Store and Spotify provide access to results grouped by appropriate attributes (e.g., Artist/Album), but also present all of the items in a list that can be sorted. This is the most effective method of helping users to find the


6

target item where there are many results. Nokia Music presents results for albums and singles separately. Individual songs appear in one list or the other but not both. In addition, results for Artist and Track searches are presented differently. This makes finding an item within results difficult and confusing. Results are presented with an accompanying thumbnail so searches with many results are distributed across several pages. The same is true of Last.fm, but filters help here. Neither Nokia Music nor Last.fm allow users to sort results, however Last.fm presents the most frequently played results first which is effective in helping users find what they are looking for.

Search results are best presented as a list that can be sorted, with each result taking up a minimal amount of space whilst ensuring that text can be read easily. Ensure that where possible, the presentation of search results is consistent across different types of search.

There are two approaches to presenting search results. Last.fm and Nokia Music opt for thumbnailed items, while Spotify and iTunes use sortable lists. Sortable lists work better for searches with many results.

As well as searching for specific songs and artists, users can often browse content by genre with charts and appropriate selections presented along the way. This is most relevant for Nokia Music and iTunes Store and they take a more or less identical approach. Each genre is presented as a fairly top level summary showing new releases, current top songs, current top albums, genre essentials, compilations and sometimes celebrity picks. As a user browses through content, they are presented with similar artists and “people who bought this also bought...” type recommendations. This is a good way of providing users with a way to interact with the catalogue and learn about new music along the way.


7

Supporting browse behaviour with recommendations, charts, and featured items encourages users to engage with the store.

3.2. Buying songs Nokia Music and iTunes Store allow users to buy and download songs. A variety of payment options are available. iTunes users can register a credit or debit card which is billed on a per transaction basis, or they can buy top‐up vouchers that can be used to add credit to an account. Nokia music users must buy credit before making a purchase using a credit card. The process of setting up these payment methods is beyond the scope of this article. The current credit level is always visible while browsing the store in both services.

Displaying a user’s store balance while they are browsing is helpful.

Where it is possible to download a song, both services provide a clear call to action alongside the price of the item and both ask for confirmation before a purchase is processed (this is optional in iTunes). A clear call to action and a confirmation stage are both useful in making a user feel comfortable at the point of purchase.

A clear call to action at the point of purchase ensures that once a user has decided to purchase a song, they know what to do next.


8

3.3. Digital Rights Management (DRM) Many download services apply DRM to material that is downloaded. DRM determines how a song can be used once it has been downloaded. iTunes recently made all of their content DRM‐free under the name iTunes Plus. They have also made it easy to upgrade existing purchases to DRM‐free retrospectively. A link on the homepage of the store invites a user to upgrade their entire collection and shows how many songs are currently restricted. Alternatively, songs can be upgraded one at a time.

iTunes groups all of a user’s DRM restricted material and offers an upgrade to DRM free. This is a helpful feature.

Nokia Music downloads are subject to DRM restrictions. It is not clear at the point of purchase that use will be restricted, and information about the restriction is hidden in the detail of the song – an area that most users would not see before making a purchase.


9

Information about DRM restrictions can only be found several levels down in the Nokia Music store.

During testing for this article, suspected DRM configuration problems meant that it was not possible to play songs even after they had been purchased and downloaded from Nokia Music. A quick look at the Nokia support forums confirmed that this was not an isolated case and the error messages that the Nokia application generated were not helpful.

This error message about a DRM licensing problem does not help a user to resolve the issue.

When distributing DRM restricted material, ensure that users are made aware of restrictions prior to purchase. Ensure that DRM related errors are fully explained and provide instructions for how they can be resolved.


10

4. Streaming As well as making songs available to download, many online music services allow users to stream music live over the internet. Streaming allows users to listen to music without owning the file, but requires a permanent connection to the internet. Access to streamed content is often free (e.g., Spotify & Last.fm), but is sometimes provided on a subscription basis (e.g., Nokia Music & Spotify Premium). Where streaming is provided free it is usually subject to conditions, Spotify for example play an audio advert every few songs. iTunes does not support song specific streaming.

4.1. Selecting and queuing songs The method for selecting and queuing songs is different for each of the services. Spotify uses a Play Queue (with its own dedicated page) which is accessed by a link in the left navigation. The Play Queue is split into 3 sections: the song that is now playing, songs that have been added manually; and songs from a general pool (usually a playlist or search result).

The Spotify Play Queue works well as a tool to manage the order of upcoming songs, add new songs, and choose a general song pool.

Double clicking any song anywhere in Spotify moves it to the now playing position and sets the general pool to that song’s source (e.g., playlist). There is no call to action, but double clicking seems to work. Songs that cannot be streamed are shown in red (playable versions of songs can usually be found by clicking artist names, so this may be a quirk of Spotify’s international licensing arrangements). Songs (and groups of songs) can be dragged and dropped onto the Play Queue link and these are added to the end of the manual queue. These are identified by small yellow dots, but this is not immediately clear. Playlists and saved searches (which appear in the left navigation) can also be dragged and dropped onto the Play Queue link and these fall into the general pool. Once a song has been played it is moved out of the queue and into a history section which has its own tab. The order of the queue can be changed by dragging and dropping songs and groups of songs. This interface provides a reasonably simple and intuitive method of selecting and queuing songs.

Nokia Music also uses a queue approach, but the queue is managed in a media player style subsection of the main application. This has the advantage of allowing users to queue downloaded songs from their libraries alongside streamed songs. Streamed songs are added to the queue using


11

the Stream Music button which appears beside each item in the store. If an item cannot be streamed, the Stream button is faded and this is helpful in showing which items can be streamed and which cannot. Songs can be added individually or entire albums can be added with a single click. While this is helpful, it is not always clear whether a single song or an entire album is being added to the queue – often the only indication is the price of the item. The queue is arranged with the most recently added songs at the bottom (this cannot be changed) and songs remain in the queue until they are removed or the queue is cleared. This causes several problems: firstly, the song that is currently playing is often off‐screen; secondly, songs that are due to be played are also off screen or at the bottom of the list; finally and most problematically, when new songs are added to the queue they are not visible and there is insufficient feedback to confirm to a user that they have been added.

The Nokia Music Queue allows users to mix downloaded and streamed content which is helpful. It is not always clear that a song has been added or which song is coming next.

Last.fm does not allow users to queue songs. Songs can be selected and played one at a time as a ‘preview’, but most songs can only be played as 30 second clips. The more typical method of streaming in Last.fm is via artist or tag Radio Stations.

4.2. Radio style streaming As well allowing users to build song queues, streaming services often offer radio style streaming. Users do not select songs but select genres, periods, or artists and the service plays a constant stream of appropriate songs. Songs can be skipped and sometimes repeated or revisited. Spotify and Last.fm both offer radio style streaming. The radio function of Spotify allows users to select a time period and multiple genres. A queue of tracks is generated that match the selection. Each time a song finishes, a new song is added to the back of the queue. While this is fairly intuitive, it can lead to some interesting selections ‐ “1950s Techno anyone?” This function is closely integrated with the other elements of Spotify; in fact the radio queue becomes the general pool part of the Play Queue


12

(see above). In some ways this is helpful but it can cause some confusion when there is already manually queued material in the Play Queue. Skipping to the next song plays the next manually added song instead of the next radio queued song even if only the radio queue is visible.

The Spotify Radio allows users to choose Genres and Eras to control the steam of songs. The flexibility of this interface means that odd combinations of filters can be selected.

Radio Stations in Last.fm can be accessed in two ways. On the Last.fm website search boxes invite users to enter an artist, tag or username to launch a radio station. The station is then played from within the user’s browser. This has the significant advantage of allowing users to stream music from any computer without having to install any software. A disadvantage of this approach is that a user can easily navigate away from the radio page and playback is ended abruptly. Last.fm have addressed this to a degree by ensuring that many functions can be accessed without browsing away from the radio page and making sure that most of the links that do navigate to a new page open in a new tab. Some functions such as searching do still navigate to a new page within the same tab causing the stream to end. Users can also listen to artist and tag stations from within the Last.fm application.

The Last.fm Radio supports streaming from within a browser. A neat interface allows users to switch between the current station and other functions without the stream dropping out. Some activities can result in the stream ending abruptly without warning.


13

5. Organising Online music services often provide some means of organising a digital library. This works well as a way of keeping users within the provider’s environment for all of their music related activities. If a user is listening to music on the iTunes Jukebox and decides to download some new songs, they are likely to go to the iTunes Store which is one click away. iTunes and Nokia Music include a library environment which can import the music on a user’s computer. Spotify encourages users to treat the entire Spotify catalogue as if it was their own music collection. Last.fm imports information about libraries from iTunes and Windows Media Player and monitors listening habits to keep the library up to date (this is known as Scrobbling). The processes involved in importing songs and libraries are beyond the scope of this article.

5.1. Metadata Perhaps the most important aspect of managing a large digital library is ensuring that metadata is accurate and compete. Metatags are codes embedded in media files that are used by library manager applications to group and sort those files. If a song is downloaded from a store, some or all of the metadata will be included in the file. When a song is ripped from a CD, most applications will find the metadata on the internet using a service such as Gracenote. Most applications allow users to update and edit metatags once a song has been imported.

It is essential for providers making songs available to download to ensure that metadata is complete and accurate. Library manager applications should be able to locate and update metadata for songs that are ripped or imported.

Providing users with a way to manage the Metadata of their library is helpful. Songs available for download should include accurate and complete metadata.


14

5.2. Searching, grouping and sorting Searching, grouping and sorting are key activities when dealing with a large digital library. Searching has been covered earlier in this article; this section will focus on grouping and sorting. All of the services covered here provide options for grouping and sorting a library.

iTunes Jukebox presents each song in the library as an item in a list. This approach is consistent with the iTunes Store and this helps users become familiar with the iTunes environment. Songs can be sorted by many of the tags in the metadata. Some of the tags have ‘smart’ sort behaviour; the album tag for example has three states: album A‐Z, album by artist, and album by artist by year. Although somewhat restrictive and not immediately obvious, this works well as a way of implementing multi‐tag sort options without overcomplicating the interface. iTunes uses Cover Flow to create the illusion of grouping songs by album. Cover Flow is a 3D graphical interface which presents album covers in such a way that a user can easily ‘flick through’ their library. The songs remain in a single list while the active song jumps from one album to the next. This works well for album grouping, but does mean that other groupings such as genre and decade are not accommodated well by the iTunes interface.

The iTunes Jukebox allows users to choose which Metatags to include as sort options.

The Nokia Music library manager provides several options for grouping and sorting a library. Grouping options include Artists, Albums, Tracks and Genres which are selected using buttons across the top of the library page. The columns shown are different for each grouping and in some views additional columns can be added while in others the selections are fixed. Groups can be sorted by any of the columns shown and this creates sub‐groups based on the items in that column. Album artwork can be shown or hidden and the way that songs are arranged and the information that is shown changes depending on how this is set. This lack of consistency in the way that songs are arranged and presented makes exploring a library in Nokia Music confusing and frustrating; it often seems like there are lots of different libraries rather than a single library arranged in different


15

ways. Songs or groups of songs are played by adding them to the Play Queue and again this can be confusing.

It is more important to present songs consistently in a way that makes the library easy to explore than to provide many options for grouping, sorting and viewing songs in the library.

The Nokia Music library manager provides a selection of views, sorting and grouping options. These can make browsing the library confusing and frustrating.

Spotify’s grouping and sorting options lie somewhere between the clean list approach of iTunes and the confusing group based multiple view approach of Nokia Music. Songs are grouped according tags which appear as clickable links in the Spotify environment. Clicking an Artist or Album link takes a user to the corresponding Artist or Album Overview page. Songs are grouped by album or disc and there are no sort options. Clicking a Genre or decade link initiates a search for that item. The results of the search are presented in one long list with suggested artist and album tags at the top. These results can be sorted. Essentially there are just three views: the Artist view, the Album view and the Track view. The Artist and Album view present appropriate groupings but cannot be sorted. Only one Artist is shown in the Artist view and only one Album is shown in the Album view so this is not really a problem. The track view is not grouped and contains many songs, but songs can be sorted by an appropriate selection of tags.

Spotify uses 2 types of view (the Artist/Album view and the Track view), providing sorting and grouping options appropriate to each. This is more restrictive than the Nokia Music interface, but much simpler as a result.


16

Last.fm takes a completely different approach to managing a library than the other three services. Rather than organising all of the songs in a user’s library (iTunes and Nokia Music) or organising all of the music available to the user via streaming (Spotify), Last.fm organises all of the music that a user has listened to. It does this by monitoring listening habits on other services (e.g., iTunes and Windows Media Player) and devices (e.g., mobile phones) and logging Plays. Plays are grouped by Artist, and Artist Plays are grouped by Album and Song. Instead of a static list of songs, a user’s library is an ever‐changing account of their listening habits. This makes it less useful for finding and playing specific songs within a library, but makes it more effective for other tasks such as making recommendations and supporting a community.

The Last.fm library is organsised according to plays. This means that it refelects listening habbits well.

5.3. Playlists All of the services examined in this article allow users to produce playlists – lists of songs grouped to be played together, burnt to CD or transferred to a portable device. Playlists can be produced manually by adding songs to a list or automatically by an application.

Manual playlists can be created in several ways, Nokia Music and Spotify allow a user to right click a song and add it to a new playlist. Both also provide a quick link to a New Playlist in the main application environment; as does iTunes. In Last.fm users can create a playlist in the Playlist section of the Library or using a small dropdown menu beside each song (this works well as a web based alternative to the right‐click method).

Playlist creation is likely to be a fairly common activity; it should be possible from multiple locations. Quick links and context menus work best.

Songs can also be added to playlists in a variety of ways. iTunes, Nokia Music and Spotify all support right‐click actions to add a song to a playlist and multiple songs can be added with the usual controls (e.g., Ctrl + CLICK). Last.fm uses the small dropdown menu to achieve the same goal. Spotify and Nokia music allow users to drag and drop songs into playlists and this also works well. All provide multiple methods of adding songs to playlists. Adding songs to playlists is also likely to be a common activity and should be well supported. Context menus and drag and drop actions work best.


17

The iTunes Genius feature works well as a way building approrpiate playlists quickly, as well as reminding users about songs they listen to less frequently.

As well as supporting manual playlists, iTunes and Nokia Music generate playlists automatically. The iTunes Genius feature allows a user to select a ‘seed’ song. Using this ‘seed’ a Playlist is generated containing songs from the user’s library based on other Genius users’ libraries. Nokia Music features a Mix Me option (only available from the streaming part of the service) which generates a playlist containing songs from a particular artist or within a particular genre. In addition, all songs in the Play Queue can be added to a new Playlist with a single click. iTunes also offers a ‘semi‐automatic’ Smart Playlist feature which allows users to set criteria and songs are added based on those criteria. Automatic Playlists add value and encourage users to engage with the application.

Playlists can often be imported and exported for use in other applications.

5.4. Love and Ratings iTunes and Nokia Music allow users to rate songs. Last.fm allows users to Love (or Ban) songs and also allows them to add their own Tags to songs and artists. Ratings and tags can be used to group and sort songs, and to create playlists.

iTunes and Nokia Music both provide a five star rating system for songs. This gives users scope to grade their music collection but it also means they have to make a decision each time they want to rate a song ‐ “I like this song, but is it a five star song or a four star song?” The Last.fm approach makes the choice much simpler by allowing users to Love songs they like and Ban songs they dislike; these are separate actions. The Last.fm interface invites users to Love or Ban a song while it is playing in any media player or device (these choices can be edited later). The rating controls of iTunes and Nokia Music appear among long lists of songs which gives them the feel of a form filling exercise. It would be interesting to know how often the five star rating is used compared to the more simple Love/Ban system.


18

Different services use different methods of ratings songs. iTunes uses a 5 star approach, while Last.fm uses a Love/Ban approach.

As well as enabling users provide direct input about their likes and dislikes, Last.fm allows users to add their own tags to songs. Small Tag buttons appear throughout the Last.fm environment, inviting users to add Tags to songs and artists as they browse. In addition, songs that are playing in other media players including iTunes and Spotify can be tagged using a menu accessed by an icon in the Task Bar. This provides users with a way of organising their library that suits them.

Last.fm allows users to Tag songs and artists in a way that suits them. It also allows users to look at how other people have tagged items.


19

6. Discovering Online music services use the information they collect about users’ libraries and listening habits to make artist, song and event recommendations. This adds value to the user’s listening experience by introducing them to new music. It also provides an opportunity to promote songs and artists. The emphasis however, should be on appropriate recommendations rather than marketing. There are two main approaches to making recommendations. The first is to use a single song or artist as the basis for the recommendations (this could be the song now playing or the song that is currently selected), the second is to use more general information about the contents of a library and listening behaviour. Most services use information about other users’ libraries and listening habits to generate recommendations.

6.1. Song based recommendations iTunes and Nokia Music both recommend songs and artists based on a single song. The iTunes Genius feature uses a song ‘seed’ to generate multiple recommendations. The Genius Sidebar gives these recommendations a consistent location. A call to action in the Sidebar invites users to select a song in their library to see related music. If an appropriate recommendation cannot be found, the Sidebar becomes a marketing area; where possible, it uses general information about the selected song (e.g., genre) to tailor the marketing. This works quite well as a fairly discreet way of integrating value added services and marketing content.

A variety of options are availble for presenting recommendations, clickable Tags work well as a way of engaging users. These are used by Spotify and Last.fm.


20

The Nokia Music media player recommends a single song based on the song that is currently playing, if no recommendation can be found the recommendation area is blank. In Artist pages, Spotify presents lists of similar artists. Above search results, Spotify presents a list of Artist and Album Tags that are relevant to the search results. The combination of these methods means that Spotify provides a very accurate and constant stream of suggestions which do not feel like marketing messages at all. Last.fm takes a similar approach by recommending Tags related to the song that is currently playing. As well as Artist Tags, Last.fm presents Genre Tags and User Tags. User Tags provide a way getting in touch with other users with similar musical tastes.

Clickable Tags are an effective method of presenting recommendations, they encourage a user to interact with the service, and seem less like advertising.

6.2. Library based recommendations As well as making recommendations based on specific songs, some services use broader library information to make recommendations. iTunes Genius for example makes suggestions based on a selection of items in a library, for example “You have music by x, we recommend y”. It is not clear how the ‘seed’ items are selected and sometimes there is a sense that it is more a case of “We want to sell you y, we notice that you have x”. Genius also allows users to rate recommendations so that over time they become more appropriate. Spotify presents a selection of artists under the heading “Artists you may like” but it is not clear how these are selected. On Spotify’s user forums there are a few bemused Folk fans with hardcore Rap and Hip‐Hop artists on their ‘Artists you may like’ spaces. Spotify does not import information from other libraries or interact with other media players, so the more you listen to music using Spotify, the more accurate the recommendations become.

Last.fm makes Artist recommendations based on listening habits. By using information Scrobbled from other services, media payers, and devices, the Last.fm recommendations tend to be more representative of a user’s musical taste. Last.fm offers additional recommendation tools. If a user’s listening habits are eclectic, Last.fm generates many recommendations from different genres. Steerable Recommendations is a Beta feature (available in the Last.fm playground) which allows users to explore these in an intuitive way. Every recommendation is presented with a selection of appropriate Tags, clicking these refines the list of recommendations. A breadcrumb trail allows users to jump back to a higher level each time a new Tag is selected. This is a good way of engaging users and encourages them to browse the catalogue of recommendations.

Last.fm are experimenting with a variety of recommendation tools in their Playground. Steerable Recommendations allow users to navigate through recommendations using clickable Tags.


21

Last.fm also offers recommendations for upcoming events based on a user’s library and location. These can be added to a calendar which can be synced to a user’s own calendar (e.g., Google Calendar). This feature adds value to the Last.fm offering.

7. Sharing The final activity that this article will cover is how online music services allow users to share music and musical tastes with each other. The services offer a wide range of features including allowing people to play songs in each other’s libraries, share playlists, and build collaborative playlists as well as supporting integration with social networking sites.

7.1. Sharing a library iTunes and Last.fm both allow users to share libraries with each other but this is done in very different ways on each service. iTunes users can share their libraries over a Local Area Network, although what can be done with a Shared Library is very restricted. The process of sharing couldn’t be simpler; the libraries of all computers running iTunes on a network appear as shared libraries in the iTunes environment. Sharing can be switched off. The library can be browsed and played as if it was the user’s own library. None of the Genius functions work on shared libraries and it is not possible to add songs to playlists.

Last.fm allows users to share each other’s libraries by making them available as Radio Stations. Any Last.fm user can play the Radio Station of any other user’s library. In addition, users can browse each other’s libraries in profile pages. Last.fm also compares user libraries and provides each user with a list of Neighbours – a Neighbourhood of users with similar listening habits. As well as being able to listen to an individual user’s Radio Station, it is possible to listen to Neighbourhood Radio Stations.

iTunes and Last.fm allow users to share libraries but in quite different ways. Last.fm invites users to browse the libraries of users with similar taste (Neighbours).


22

7.2. Sharing songs and playlists Some of the services also allow users to share individual songs and playlists. In Spotify for example, most items can be dragged and dropped as clickable links. This makes it easy for users to share songs and playlists with each other. Songs and Playlists can be dropped into an email and sent to anyone but the recipient must have Spotify installed in order to play them. Users can also share Collaborative Playlists, these allow multiple users to add and remove songs; again sharing the Playlist is as simple as dropping a link into an email.

Spotify allows users to share songs an playlists using common Social Networking sites.

In addition to sharing songs and playlists by email, Spotify users can post playlists to social networking sties including Facebook and Delicious.

Last.fm allows users to share songs and Playlists with Friends (see below).

7.3. Musical communities It could be argued that online music services depend on a community of users to succeed. News about new services is often spread by word of mouth and supporting this can be crucial to a service’s success. When Spotify launched in the UK, users could only join by receiving an invitation. This meant that users sent invitations to their friends which spread the word. There is consistency in that songs and playlists are shared in the same way. iTunes Genius relies on the willingness of users to share the contents of their libraries with Apple (though not with each other) to be able to generate good recommendations. Last.fm does not sell downloads and its streaming functionality is much more restricted than that of Spotify. It relies on providing accurate recommendations and suggestions because of its large user base and integration with other devices and services. iTunes and Nokia Music send Newsletters out to users promoting new releases. Last.fm offers additional community support in that users can become Friends in the social networking sense of the word. There are also Groups for users with common musical tastes. Groups host Forums and users can post Journal entries for the Group to read.


23

Last.fm supports Groups of users with similar interests. Groups host Forums and Journals. Users can also become Friends

If a service does not support its own community, good integration with existing communities is advisable.

8. Conclusion This article has presented a broad overview of the kinds of activities supported by Online Music Services. It has looked at the interfaces that support them, and offered tips to developers moving into this area. Deciding carefully which activities to support and how to support them will help a service to meet its users’ requirements effectively. Good awareness of what other services are offering will provide opportunities to support integration with those services.

There are many aspects of online music services that have not been covered by this article. The way that services interact with mobile devices is one example. Many services support direct streaming onto mobile devices. This introduces entirely new user experience questions. Many Nokia S60 handsets support Mobbler, a 3rd Party application that Scrobbles songs played on a phone’s native media player to a user’s Last.fm profile. It also supports streaming directly from a Last.fm account to a user’s handset. The application is free and the only cost to the user is that of the data transferred. What does this mean for Spotify who are hoping to support their free computer based streaming service with revenue from their pay‐for Mobile streaming service?

The market place is set become more competitive; Virgin Media have announced their intention to launch a DRM‐free download service before the end of the year, and there are rumours of a Microsoft streaming service on the horizon. The effectiveness of these services in supporting user listening behaviour will play a significant role in their success.


24

About ExperienceLab ExperienceLab (formerly Serco Usability Services), are a global experience design research agency. They help organisations optimise their customer experiences, from web to TV and mobile, from advertising to physical environments. They’ve been doing this for a while, pretty much since the first computers and networks were created, so they know a thing or two about how to make people, processes and technologies work in harmony.

ExperienceLab use a wide range of techniques to tailor a research solution that fits your business objective, including ideation sessions, proposition analysis, customer needs mapping, usability testing, benchmarking and touch point integration studies. As a co‐founder of the UXalliance we also provide research on a global scale.

Why not visit the ExperienceLab blog (www.experiencelab.info), which features the latest thinking on experience design issues.

Serco ExperienceLab 22 Hand Court London WC1V 6JF +44 (0)20 7421 6499 info@experience‐lab.co.uk www.serco.com/experiencelab


25

Serco ExperienceLab 22 Hand Court London WC1V 6JF +44 (0)20 7421 6499 info@experience‐lab.co.uk www.serco.com/experiencelab ExperienceLab is part of the International Serco Group of companies. © 2009 Serco Limited, All Rights Reserved

Date post:	17-Oct-2021
Category:	Documents
Upload:	others
View:	0 times
Download:	0 times

Digital Music Services

Documents