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Finally, the “Sports event” mood picture (Fig. 11.10) illustrated an
exciting basketball game with animated lights flashing on the picture. The
seed songs for this mood were Michael Jackson - “Thriller,” Survivor -
“Eye of the Tiger,” Children Of Bodom - “Living Dead Beat,” and Queen
- “We are the Champions.”
Research method
To study how well the prototype worked in practice, we arranged a user
study as a part of a study on six novel music recommendation applications.
All applications were evaluated by 40 participants. The initial research
questions of the mood pictures study were formulated as:
x
Are users interested in using mood pictures to access music
recommendation services and generate playlists? Do they consider
the concept fun and entertaining?
x
Would the users be willing to replace their current music player
with this type of application? Or does it only complement
traditional applications?
x
How does the prototype work in general? Is it fast enough and easy
to use? How could it be developed further?
x
How do the mood pictures used match with the related music
recommendations?
x
How does the user experience change after using the prototype for
a longer period of time?
The research method was a combination of observation, semi-
structured interview, questionnaires, and evaluations done at home or in
any other preferred listening context. Each interview session lasted about
30 minutes, and all participants tested the software for the first time. The
participants were not informed about how the prototype works, or what
they should do with it; they were encouraged to use it as they wish.
Tutorials or help files were not included.
Interview sessions were arranged in various locations such as their own
homes, authors' homes, as well as the premises of the Nokia Research
Centre and Tampere University of Technology. Thirty seven of 40
interview sessions were arranged to use an HP Pavilion tx2500 touch-
screen laptop and three to use a basic Dell Inspiron laptop. Evaluations at
home were performed using participants' own computers.
At the beginning of the interview session, the participants had to fill in
a short background information questionnaire. They were also shown the
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