Summary
Research Synthesis Design Solution

Synthesis

01 Research Findings

After each stage of research, we reviewed our data and identified the user needs. Each ensuing stage either added to this set of needs or reinforced the needs we had already found.

Media Research
The media we looked at (including magazines, and tv shows) showed us the importance of beauty, fashion, and design. The media helped formed our idea of what makes a design "feminine." It also gave us a color palette for our design.

Competitive Analysis
The major take-away from this stage of research was that the iPod was the most popular product. It seemed that not only did friends play a large role in the choice of player, but the fact that the iPod was the only player that looked like an accessory, and not like a gadget also helped in its market dominance.

Interviews and Observations
This was the most informative stage of our research.
Important findings:

  • Friends influence everying! Most girls we interviewed owned either the iPod or the iPod mini. Their responses reinforced our earlier finding that friends were important in the choice of player. One girl mentioned that she used to have another mp3 player, but since all her friends had the mini, she got one too.
  • Personalization: one girl mentioned - "I got the green [mini] because my roommate already had the pink one."
  • Isolation: " [I listen to my player] when I don’ t want to talk to people "
  • Storage - in their bag, jacket pocket
  • Scratching - wanted to preserve looks of player
  • Every day use - walking around campus, on the bus, working out

Focus Groups
We received some enthusiastic responses, and some definate no's...
Findings:

  • Necklace for earbuds seemed "tacky"
  • wire-tangling a huge issue - I’ m always tangled in wires, I hate it.
  • Sharing would be "really cool!" and "cool if you could do other [kinds of files] too"
  • Broadcasting also "really cool" but "sometimes I wouldn’t want others to be able to see what I’m listening to"
  • Scrathing a big deal
  • Aesthetics/Design important

Bonus Notes

IID 2005 . Human-Computer Interaction Institute . Carnegie Mellon University