HCIAssignment1

Introduction

this report assesses the usability of the itunes store (http://www.apple.com/nz/itunes/store). The report plays specific attention to the ease of purchasing music, while also assessing the general usability of the site. We accomplish this by preforming a heuristic usability evaluation, with a task-based approach. We each followed a set of tasks and attempted to identify any areas of difficulty. These were based on Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics

1. Visibility of system status
2. Match between system and the real world
3. User control and freedom
4. Consistency and standards
5. Error prevention
6. Recognition rather than recall
7. Flexibility and efficiency of use
8. Aesthetic and minimalist design
9. Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
10. Help and documentation

The tests were carried out on a laptop and a desktop. The laptop: 2.8ghz with 512 ram and on Windows XP. There were no issues with speed or compatabiliy effecting the test. iTunes and the iTunes store appeard to work as intended. The tests were both carried out in moderatly quiet rooms, and thought to be typical enviroments to which the iTunes store would be used.

Executive Summary

The overall ease of use for the iTunes music store was quite good. The learning curve for the site was quite small, and the interface was fairly standard. We have found some obvious and fundamental problems with the site, namely the requirement of iTunes and the small buttons. The apple media software iTunes must be installed before previewing or purchasing any of the music is possible. The actual website interface was aimed at the iTunes software, where the iTunes store was advertised as a feature of the software. The website did provide an almost inconspicuosus search box with a poor method of displaying results using a small drop down frame. Using the iTunes software, the "iTunes Store" becomes available. This provides a fairly good interface for accessing and purchasing music. One major problem we did identify with the iTunes store was the use of very small buttons. There is frequent use of a circular button with an arrow on it. This had varying functionality and was smaller than a standard mouse curser. Furthermore a non-intuative method of selecting previews and the large download and install of iTunes, hindered the ease with which music could be purchased.

Methodology

We took a task based approach to our usability tests. Two first time users was given a series of tasks to carry, each testing a specific area/functionality of the website. Both users were fairly experienced in using computers and familiar with standard computer interaction.

The first task was to find a paticular common song, starting on at the main website http://www.apple.com/nz/itunes/store/.

• Get a preview/additional informaion about the song

• Purchase the song (as far as possible without spending money)

The next task was varied by changing to a little known song, to test

find similar music

Tasks for a typical user to complete

(And the steps by which they would expect to complete the task)

Search for album

1. Find the search area

2. Enter the album title, start search

3. Report all albums that have matching titles

Search for artist

1. Find the search area

2. Enter the artist name, start search

3. Report all albums that have matching names

Search for a song

1. Find the search area

2. Enter the song name, start search

3. Report all songs that have matching names

Search for a genre

1. Find the search area

2. Enter the genre name, start search

3. Report all songs that have matching genre

Find other songs by same artist

1. Find the search area

2. Enter the artist name, start search

3. Report all songs that have matching artist name

Find other albums by same artist

1. Find the search area

2. Enter the artist name, start search

3. Report all albums that have matching artist

Find other songs that people who liked this song also liked

1. Find the search area

2. Enter the song name, start search

3. Report all songs that were bought by people who also bought this song

Find other artists in this genre

1. Find the search area

2. Enter the genre, start search

3. Report all artists who have songs or albums that fit into this genre

Preview the song

1. Find the song required (by any means)

2. Start the preview of that song

3. Stop the preview of that song

4. Play the preview again

5. Select a time in the preview to restart playback from

Buy the song

1. Find the song required (by any means)

2. Indicate that you wish to buy the song

3. Move through the buying process

4. Buy the song

5. See an indication that you have brought the song

Major Tasks Identified

Purchase music Find music (site biased towards popular music)

• Search for album

• Search for artist

• Search for a song

• Search for a genre

• Find other songs by same artist

• Find other albums by same artist

• Find other songs that people who liked this song also liked

• Find other artists in this genre

• Preview the song

• Buy the song

Task-By-Task Analysis

The first task was to find a common piece of music and go as far through the process of purchasing it as possible, without actually doing so.

• (figure 1)

Seeing the page for the first time, it was not obvious where to go to start searching for music. The links in the menu on the left were not underlined or very obvious. A large proportion of the page is also consumed by advertisements. The main focus of the page is the screenshot of iTunes. It is not at first obvious that it is a screenshot and parts of the picture were even clicked to try and gain access to the music. The “Music” link on the left menu was the first place clicked. The main page did not look promising and the user did not bother to scroll down.

• (figure 2)

The music page did cause the user to scroll down, but did not have any obvious link to finding and purchasing music. It is important to note that the user did not read any of the content. The style of the website was much like an advert. The actual music search box was then discovered at the bottom left of the screen.

• (figure3)

On the main page, with a screen resolution of 1440x900, the “Start shopping” box takes up a small fraction of the screen, and is positioned at the bottom left, which isn’t an obvious position. Once you scroll down to see all of the “Start Shopping” You can see the search area.

• (figure 4)

• (figure of search results)

The search results however were displayed in a small area in the same frame. Only a small number of album covers were shown, and you had to sort through these in order to find your song.

• (figure 6)

When the album was found and clicking to listen in iTunes was clicked, the user was taken to a new screen where the user was suposidly connecting to the iTunes store. The user is now told they need to have the iTunes sofware to view the store. Using the firefox browser, the website is unable to detect itunes and tells the user that iTunes is not on the computer (even when it is). The website is compatable with Internet Explorere howevere

Music Store Search on main page

Tasks for a typical user to complete (And the steps by which they would expect to complete the task)

Note: These tasks were initially attempted from the iTunes web interface, at http://www.apple.com/nz/itunes/store/

Search for an album by name

1. Find the search area
2. Enter the album title, start search
3. Report all albums that have matching titles

Problems Identified	Usability principle violated
Search area is not shown on the screen when the browser is running in full screen on a 17” screen. User must scroll down to look for it
Reporting of albums is by picture of album cover, rather than name. If a user has not seen the album before, they must scroll through all albums to read the names

Search for an artist name

1. Find the search area
2. Enter the artist name, start search
3. Report all albums that have matching names

Problems Identified	Usability principle violated
Search area is not shown on the screen when the browser is running in full screen on a 17” screen. User must scroll down to look for it
Reporting of artists is by picture of album cover, rather than name. If a user has not seen the album before, they must scroll through all albums to read the names

Search for a song

1. Find the search area
2. Enter the song name, start search
3. Report all songs that have matching names

Problems Identified	Usability principle violated
Search area is not shown on the screen when the browser is running in full screen on a 17” screen. User must scroll down to look for it
Reporting of song is by picture of album cover, rather than name. If a user has not seen the album before, they must scroll through all albums to read the names
No distinction is made between audio songs, and music videos	Consistency and standards – Here the pictures/text for video and audio are the same, which could confuse users – the button under a music video still says “listen in iTunes” The search appears to check against all information in the metadata, resulting in song matches that have no apparent connection to the song requested

Search for songs in a genre

1. Find the search area
2. Enter the genre name, start search
3. Report all songs that have matching genre

Problems Identified Usability principle violated This feature is not supported in the search bar on the main page User control and freedom – this is a feature many users would like to use, but it is unavailable.

Find other songs by same artist

1. Find the search area
2. Enter the artist name, start search
3. Report all songs that have matching artist name

Problems Identified Usability principle violated This feature is not supported in the search bar on the main page User control and freedom – this is a feature many users would like to use, but it is unavailable.

Find other songs that people who liked this song also liked

1. Find the search area
2. Enter the song name, start search
3. Report all songs that were bought by people who also bought this song

Problems Identified Usability principle violated This feature is not supported in the search bar on the main page User control and freedom – this is a feature many users would like to use, but it is unavailable.

Find other artists in this genre

1. Find the search area
2. Enter the genre, start search
3. Report all artists who have songs or albums that fit into this genre

Problems Identified Usability principle violated This feature is not supported in the search bar on the main page User control and freedom – this is a feature many users would like to use, but it is unavailable.

Preview the song

1. Find the song required (by any means)
2. Start the preview of that song
3. Stop the preview of that song
4. Play the preview again
5. Select a time in the preview to restart playback from

Problems Identified Usability principle violated No distinction is made between audio songs, and music videos Consistency and standards – Here there is no distinction between audio and video, so users who only want to preview an audio track can be lead to preview a video track The link to “Listen in iTunes” takes the user to a page containing a list of songs from the album selected, with the searched for song highlighted, but does not indicate how the song can be previewed. The song must be double-clicked to start playback.

Buy the song

1. Find the song required (by any means)
2. Indicate that you wish to buy the song
3. Move through the buying process
4. Buy the song
5. See an indication that you have brought the song

Problems Identified Usability principle violated Could not verify step 5

Up to step 4, there was no indication of what song was actually being bought. If the user had accidentally clicked the wrong buy button, they would not know.

Canceling a buying operation takes you back to the main home page for itunes, not the screen where the user clicked buy

iTunes internal search bar

Tasks for a typical user to complete (And the steps by which they would expect to complete the task)

Note: These tasks were initially attempted from the iTunes web interface, at http://www.apple.com/nz/itunes/store/

Search for an album by name

1. Find the search area
2. Enter the album title, start search
3. Report all albums that have matching titles

Problems Identified Usability principle violated No search button to press once search query has been entered. User control and freedom – this is a feature many users would like to use, but it is unavailable. Unable to specify type of attribute to search for. User control and freedom – this is a feature many users would like to use, but it is unavailable. When a search query is entered, a button to clear the query appears where you would expect an execute button. Recognition rather than recall and Consistency and standards – The user has to recall that the button which appears does not have the expected functionality of executing the search. Results return in the order of popularity, this means songs from the same band or album are mixed up. Match between system and the real world – Users are likely to want results grouped by band or genre to help with the manual search through results. The same search bar has varying functionality within iTunes. Is also used for searching local library of music. Consistency and standards – Users are likely to confuse the two and expect a different set of resluts. Search bar does not follow the same style as the rest of the site. Consistency and standards – search bar might be ignored because it might not seem like part of the store.

Search for songs in a genre

1. Find the search area
2. Enter the genre name, start search
3. Report all songs that have matching genre

Problems Identified Usability principle violated This feature is not supported in the search bar at the top of the iTunes software. User control and freedom – this is a feature many users would like to use, but it is unavailable.

Find other artists in this genre

1. Find the search area
2. Enter the genre, start search
3. Report all artists who have songs or albums that fit into this genre

Problems Identified Usability principle violated This feature is not supported in the search bar at the top of the iTunes software. User control and freedom – this is a feature many users would like to use, but it is unavailable.

Preview the song

1. Find the song required (by any means)
2. Start the preview of that song
3. Stop the preview of that song
4. Play the preview again
5. Select a time in the preview to restart playback from

Problems Identified Usability principle violated No distinction is made between audio songs, and music videos Consistency and standards – Here there is no distinction between audio and video, so users who only want to preview an audio track can be lead to preview a video track

Buy the song

1. Find the song required (by any means)
2. Indicate that you wish to buy the song
3. Move through the buying process
4. Buy the song
5. See an indication that you have brought the song

Problems Identified Usability principle violated Could not verify step 5 Up to step 4, there was no indication of what song was actually being bought. If the user had accidentally clicked the wrong buy button, they would not know. Canceling a buying operation takes you back to the main home page for itunes, not the screen where the user clicked buy

Top 3 Recommendations For Improvement

remove the need for iTunes? larger buttons? less clutter? (lists of links everywhere, different styles of adverts everywhere)

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Notes

iTunes wouldnt load from firefox, did from IE.

wierd difference between uni and home... small search bar not obvious - not even on the screen. Far left hand side misleading other links misleading advertisments no link to search page on music section no search page search by songs brings up albums with song name as title - no album titles given no option to listen b4 getting itunes - may want to buy ipod basd on quality of itunes music Very big download - 36.09Mb stopped using website - now using itunes software not very intuitive to get the promised preview - not obvious what the link is selecting a diff song and pressing play does not play the new song, rather the old one, until you dbl clik on the song title. buying is intuitive and easy, not too much info required Have to log in for free songs

itunes

search bar small not easily noticable - advertising in the way good error detection good layout of search results popularity rating nice cant rearrange so album is first in list- nake has to be firts cant specify search by album/artsist etc small buttons and text reviews are great no external adverts (not diverted from buying music) some featured artists have special pages.

couple bugged links

download of itunes - We saw this as a problem because of the time taken up installing a product not necessary and not desired.

tasks

search by album search by artist search by song search by genre

find other songs by same artist find other albums by same artist find other songs that people who liked this song also liked find other artists in this genre preview the song buy the song

http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/ http://www.amygrude.com/documents/536.pdf?PHPSESSID=77d364f6317cf5ad2d1e281fc68f7e3b

cant rearrange so album is first in list- nake has to be firts cant specify search by album/artsist etc