Course
California College of the Arts
Interaction Design | NUI and Objects | Professor Graham Plumb
Collaborative Project with Tonghe Ge and Elaine Jin
Tangible Music Player
With tangible music player, instead of just tapping on a screen, you get to touch and play with real objects to control your music. It makes everything feel more real and natural, making it easier for you to enjoy your music without getting confused by a bunch of buttons on a screen.
Skills
3D Building
Design Research
Journey Mapping
Rapid Prototyping
Sketching
User Interface (UI) Design
Wireframing
Tools
Figma
Project Timeline
Oct 2023 – Nov 2023 (4 weeks)
Our tangible music player offers an intuitive and engaging user experience, allowing users to interact with it through actions such as inserting, rotating, and clicking. This seamless interaction process enhances the enjoyment of playing music, making it both user-friendly and fun.
This simplicity and directness in control enhance user enjoyment and understanding, reducing the cognitive burden associated with navigating complex digital interfaces. Additionally, tangible interfaces provide physical feedback through tactile sensations and movements, further reinforcing the user's connection with the device. By engaging multiple senses, including touch and sight, tangible music players create a more immersive and enjoyable experience, making them preferred by users seeking a more engaging and intuitive music playback solution.
Affordances, Constraints, Signifiers and Feedback
Affordances:
Inserting a token (album) serves as an affordance. The user perceive that inserting the token (album) will initiate a process of generating songs into balls.
Signifiers:
Play, pause, and arrow symbols with recognizable icons serve as signifiers, clearly communicating their respective functions.
Constraints:
The hole for inserting a musical tube serves as a physical constraint that naturally guides users to use the musical tube correctly. For instance, if the shape of the tube and the hole are uniquely matched, it becomes unlikely for users to insert the tube incorrectly.
Feedback
When a user uses the play controller, the music player provides feedback by starting playback and displaying the song title and artist on the screen. Similarly, pausing the music results in visual feedback indicating the pause state.
Reflection:
The decision to undertake a comprehensive redesign of mechanical parts proved to be a pivotal step in achieving our goal of a smoother and more intuitive user experience. By refining the internal structure and addressing specific issues uncovered during testing, we were able to significantly enhance the overall operation of the device. The focus on refining the user interaction path, particularly in the acquisition and sharing processes, further contributed to improving usability and accessibility.
