- Designing, conducting, analyzing, and
documenting user research studies
- Synthesizing domain research
- Interaction design
Process
After brainstorming over 45 innovative ideas, the team settled
on the concept of allowing every driver on the road to broadcast
their own radio station. Although contextual inquiries with
actual radio DJs revealed the many attention-heavy tasks are
required of actual DJs, we realized that creative solutions
could simplify the process. A participatory design session
with commuters helped to clarify what activities people do
in their car while commuting, and the ways in which current
radio could be improved.
As our design process continued, we started
thinking about bringing the concept of collaborative filtering
to the radio. By using a person’s digital music collection,
we could provide a fairly accurate profile of their musical
tastes. By including the ability for the system to modify
a person’s profile based on their listening habits,
we could be even more accurate about their tastes. The ability
to accurately predict someone’s tastes is an important
part of Roadcasting because the system presents stations to
people based on these assumptions. For example, if you like
classic rock and grunge music, the stations’ of people
with similar tastes are presented to you first.
These design ideas, along with several
others, were tested with two rounds of think aloud testing
and one focus group. Several prototypes were used during the
tests, the final one utilizing Java and Processing. Our service
design as well as specific interface aspects changed based
on the feedback received from these tests.
We've received significant interest from the press, including articles in Wired, MIT Technology Review, and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. For more information about Roadcasting,
visit the team's website.
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