Related Works: Part 1

Our team recently reviewed previous literature related to media player organization, social networking integration, recommendation integration, and gesture-based controls to help us better understand current research studies in order to inform our usability test and prototype.

photo source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/

For media player organization, researchers emphasize the importance of considering scalability and customizability when designing for media users because of the sheer volume of media consumed and because of the number of devices and personalized organization systems that users already use (Sease & McDonald, 2011). Studies also discuss the importance of the tangible experience of looking through physical media (e.g., CDs, DVDs, photo albums) because it enhances the user enjoyment by involving "the whole human senses" of browsing the shelves, physically touching the media, and hearing other customers talk about the media (Henze & Boll, 2010, p.3980). This helps to inform the design of media players by including album cover art and user commentary in order to simulate this tangible experience.

photo source: http://www.seo.com/

For social networking integration, research states that “object-centered sociality” leads to successful social media experiences because users prefer specific objects (e.g., music, videos, photos) to serve “as anchors for conversations” in their social media experience, as opposed to just discussing people or links to content (McCarthy, 2011, p.17). This type of research demonstrates an opportunity for aVia's media player to provide that object-centered sociality to its users.  In order to do this, several technologies have emerged to fulfill the need of media sharing functionality, especially on social networking sites. For example, cloud technology and DLNA are two widely used technologies for media sharing (Cui, Kim, & Lee, 2011). aVia currently uses DLNA; however, cloud technology is another area for aVia to possibly explore in order to support streaming media. Our team also believes that the aVia "flinging" function may provide a fun, social opportunity for friends to fling media between their devices so that they can co-view/co-listen to media together. This desire to co-experience media together was exemplified during our campus observations when we saw many users sharing headphones or huddled around devices to view and listen to media together.

Look for a post later this week about recommendation integration and gesture-based controls!

For more details, please check out our full related works report.