Thesis Explorations

Matt Yamashita

He's a 20 something amateur DJ, audio collector, college wonderkid. He's always on the look out for new and unique sounds he wants an app that can quickly record and explore sounds quickly.

See the Prototype through Matt Yamashita's experience in exploring for new sounds and recording them.

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Hannah C

Hannah is a 30 something New Yorker. She loves to collect things and loves reminiscing. She wants to create a playlist of sounds of her childhood and travels, and share them with her loved ones.

See the Prototype through Hannah C's experience in creating a playlist of sounds.

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The "Thumb Zone" Problem

Some of us find it uncomfortable to continuously to swipe from left to right in Paper by Facebook with our thumbs. Scott Hurff, a product analyst with 15 years experience in building apps, concluded that it's because of the The "Thumb Zone". Coined by Steven Hoober author of the O'Reilly book Designing Mobile Interfaces, "The Thumb Zone" is "the most comfortable area for touch with one-handed use." And while there are many variables at play here, he found that 90% of mobile phone users use their right hand and that 49% of users held their phone in one hand and used their phone with one thumb.

PHASE 1

Create

Record a sound

Edit the recorded sound

Choose an image from VSCO and apply it to the recorded sound

Name the sound and hashtag it

Check-in the location where it's recorded

Curate

Comment, Like, Share sounds and playlists

Add sounds to a playlist

Edit playlist

Choose an image from VSCO and apply it to the playlist

Collaborate

Share playlists with your friends

Get their comments and feedback

Friends can suggest sounds to add to the playlist

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PHASE 2

Create

Download sounds

Private or public mode of the sounds created

Collaborate

Facebook’s release of Paper yesterday on the App Store breaks a string of uninspired releases outside of Instagram, and has many believing it’s a glimpse into the future of mobile interaction.

But there’s one problem: if this is the future, it’s going to hurt. And I mean physically.

There’s no doubt that Paper is a fresh and innovative take on content browsing. But while Paper may not ask much of us when we sign up to use the app — it asks a lot of us when it comes to the app’s default interactions. So much so that the Paper’s heaviest users might need to start popping arthritis medication in a few years.

– Scott Hurff

Here’s what users have to do when using the new app:

According to Hurff, it’s because of the “Thumb Zone.” 

THE “THUMB ZONE”

Coined by Steven Hoober, author of the O’Reilly book Designing Mobile Interfaces, the Thumb Zone is “the most comfortable area for touch with one-handed use.” And while there are many variables at play here, he found that 49% of users held their phone in one hand and used their phone with one thumb.

Let’s get specific. Paper was released only on iPhone. So let’s look at the Thumb Zone on a 4 inch iPhone screen:

FIXING THE THUMB HOOK

It’s fascinating how easy it is to solve this problem. The only realization it requires is that swipes don’t have to occur on a strict X or Y axis; they can follow the natural arc of our fingers.

Let’s take a look at how Hurff’d do it:

Easy. All it requires is shrinking the space allocated to the Topic section above and increase the space allocated to the story navigation (the swiping part that’ll give us arthritis) by 50 pixels. DONE. 

Improved Filter function. Play with prototype 6.

Next steps:

Annotated Userflow.

After last week's user testings: I've decided to work on Prototype 6.

Fast forward to play with Prototype 6 - high fidelity. 

Changes: 

Added a secondary navigation, so it'll less steps for users to explore new sounds, access their sounds, and check their feed.

MY FEED. Changed the square "thumbnail format to a band. This is to reduce the amount of information overload on the feed and sounds are usually presented in a list. (Signal to ration & using elements of the real world into the design principles). 

CATEGORY. Colors assigned are now determined by sound category, suggested by computer, to give a bit of a surprise. 

SEARCH. "Side Nav" Search function is combined together with "Explore", as it was confusing for users. Instead of 2 search functions with 2 different filters, now it's 1 and users will be able to add categories. 

EDIT. This function follows the search filters, to make it more uniform with the rest of the app. And also to minimize confusion. (On hind sight, I think it'll be confusing, as users will need to apply filter & listen to the changes they've made). 

SIDE NAV now has lesser options. "My playlist" isn't something that's as important as "my sounds" or discovering new sound. User can access it through "my profile".

“It is too bad that sound waves decay. If they did not, we would still be able to hear melodies by Mesomedes, and Odo of Cluny playing his organistrum. We would hear extinct toxodons, and prehistoric horses wearing pottery bells, and dead bats chewing crackly flies. We could hear the goats of the past – the old English milch goats, the fatlings of Bashan, thirsty peacock goats, Finnish Landrace goats bleating for their kids, baby Göingegets grizzling for their mothers, and wild mountain ibexes protesting hoarsely at being made to live in the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. The world, full of past sound, would be like the sky, full of past light. The world would be like the mind, for which there is no once.”