User Testing Day Prototype and Slides

• For Thesis User Testing Day, I made slides to guide my volunteer testers through a listening experience of a song wow! which I plan to release as single for the album and is the furthest along in recording. The slides are below along with my process and some learnings!

[https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DLptfRVVPdbHu3_r7g4X908A-a3e91JWWPK4eLfWIHc/edit#slide=id.g329df297a67_0_336](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1DLptfRVVPdbHu3_r7g4X908A-a3e91JWWPK4eLfWIHc/preview#slide=id.g329df297a67_0_336)

User Testing Requirements

• As I gathered an equipment and material list I kept the following requirements/notes in mind:
  • Has to be setup and broken down in 10 minutes
  • Will be in ballroom which can only have certain types of furniture and I requested a plinth or small table to borrow from the floor
  • I want the interaction to include listening to a song and I should provide headphones, particularly wanted to provide Bluetooth ones so the tester could move freely while listening
  • I have 45 minutes total for testing, want to aim for at least 5 testers who can provide feedback and need a way to capture feedback from them

Equipment and Materials

• I ended up with the following list for what to pack for bringing to the User testing day:
  • Personal Equipment: Macbook Pro Charger w/ Laptop Charger, Bluetooth Headphones (personal equipment)
  • Furniture from ITP: Small table
  • For Feedback and Notes: iPhone (with voice memo and camera), pen and notebook

Prototype Planning

• After reviewing the user testing day resources and suggestions, I focused on the following requirements and preparation:

  • I wanted to identify what my current lowest fidelity prototype was, overall what was the most simple prototype I could show
  • After identifying my goals for testing and audience I should create script with 3 asks
  • The testing should include conducting my test in an efficient way, listening to my tester, and finding a way to connect with them and gather their feedback

• After thinking about my user map and settling on a more generative (vs evaluative) testing approach, I decided to write out my script in the form of Google Slides to streamline the testing process and use a familiar and reliable software.

  • Title Slide: Displays current album art and name of my thesis reusing a Google Slides template that I have saved to continue testing the styling and aesthetics of the project
  • Intro: Gives a quick context of my thesis, how this prototype fits in, what my goals for testing are, and lets the user know what to expect before they agree to listen and participate in the rest of testing.
  • Feedback Questions: Outlines the specific questions I will have for listener’s after they listen to the song.

• Song Playback (Album Art and Lyrics): The last two slides each included an audio player to play the most recent mix of the song “wow!”, hosted on Google Drive.

  • I gave testers the option of listening to the song while looking at at a visual of the song drawn last year during “100 Days of Making” or the lyrics

Findings and Feedback

• Asking for descriptive feedback and specific questions worked really well for testing and capturing generative ideas:
  • The questions were inspired by ones I’ve given as a teaching assistant in songwriting workshops taught at the virtual school School of Song. They’ve found this type of descriptive feedback be the most helpful at this stage of sharing songs and when they’re fresh and it was helpful to use in this user testing scenario where I’m looking for reactions vs suggestions.

• Questions responses:
  • Emotional Quality:
    • People said they felt energized after listening to the song, can dance in their room to it
    • Those who saw my NIME performance said this version sounded different emotionally with the instrumentation in terms of it feeling happier and more poppy
    • Other listeners mentioned that the lyrics made them emotional and could feel the sadness or darker themes of the song as well
  • Genre:
    • Someone asked what my definition of folk is, we talked about Bob Dylan and the artists portrayed in A Complete Unknown which I haven’t seen yet
    • Other genres mentioned were: indie rock/pop, country rock, R&B (during the bridge when I vocal riff)
    • Others said it reminded them of Kimya Dawson and songs from the show Adventure Time, which was awesome because those are two musical influences and match the vibe I was going for so was super happy about that!
  • Lyrics vs Music:
    • Juxtaposition between the lightness of the music and heaviness of the lyrics
    • Giving people the option of looking at the lyrics vs not was something I’ll continue in the future, as I think it added to giving the tester a better experience and matching how they’d like to listen to a song

• Tester Participation: Finally, at the end of my testing I asked if they’d like to contribute to my collection of people saying “wow!”. I’m not sure what I’ll use the audio for yet but want to try to incorporate it into a music video or in the audio edit for the song.
  • I used the voice memos app on my iPhone to record and then allowed the tester to add their name and email so I could contact them later for consent and credit purposes to use and also stay in touch!
  • This was so fun and I loved all of the recordings people did, thank you to my testers!