Introduction
This project consists of three deliverables which are assignments in the HCIN610 – Foundation of Human-Computer Interaction course at the Rochester Institution of Technology. Students in groups of three or four worked as a group and individually to identify a research question, practice a few data collection methods (field observation, online survey, interview, and task walkthrough), create user profiles and personas, and made storyboards based on scenarios.
Team members: Junchen Li, Wenhao Luebs, Vinita Tibdewal, and Jager Wang.
Instead of focusing on a particular device, system, or service, we examined the use of multiple online music streaming services and identified the following research questions:
- Why do participants use particular music service(s)?
- What participants consider important when choosing music services?
- What do participants think about using voice assistant on music service(s)?
Based on one of our findings, we proposed a new feature for online music streaming services.
Data Collection
- Each of us conducted individual field observation of people using various types of music services prior to identifying the research questions above.
- We collected and analyzed data from a supplemental Google survey to help develop interview questions.
- We planned a set of interview questions based on our research questions and results from the field observation as well as the online survey.
- Each of us individually conducted an interview and a task walkthrough with a stakeholder. A list of problems was then identified from the interview.
User Profiles
Based on the data from the interviews, we created the user profiles below.

Personas
Each team member created one persona according to user characteristics assigned by the group. The following personas are supported by the data we collected.
Storyboards with Scenarios
We selected one of the pain points from the personas, created one problem scenarios and one design scenarios, and illustrated storyboards accordingly.
Storyboard – music service that plays the unwanted song. Storyboard – smart playlist plays songs appropriate for the situations.
Future Work
The next steps for this project would be constructed low fidelity prototype and high fidelity prototype, evaluated the prototypes using design principles and heuristic evaluation. Continuous user research and usability testing will be required to improve current services or develop a new product.