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Observation Assignment Jody Zellen JaeYoon Kang Virgin records |
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Our first thought was to go the US Post Office to see if their systems for waiting in line and buying stamps were using digital technologies. The post office on 4th Ave and 11 street was not crowded at all and while there was one stamp machine no one was using it. We decided to try another location.
We checked out Virgin Records, after roaming around the store for a while we noticed the listening stations that surrounded the perimeter of the store. Immediately we began to interact with the machine that pronounced "TRY before you BUY." The touch screen interface was quite easy to use and clear as to how to navigate. It was not offensive visually in keeping with the red, black and white colors that are Virgin's logo. To listen to a CD, or to search for a video all you have to do is click search and using the full-screen key pad type in the artist or movie you want to locate and preview. Once the artist is selected, you can choose an album and listen to all the songs at any volume that is comfortable for you through the headphones, easily clicking on plus or minus to make it louder or softer. The delay between songs was a bit slow and that became frustrating. After we played with the "TRY before you BUY" machines-- there are 10 located on the left wall when you enter the store, we also checked out the 10 new release stations where you can listen to all the songs on the featured albums. The featured album stations were less complicated and did not have a touch screen. Here there were forward and back button much what you see on a CD player that allowed you to click through the songs on the CD. We spend 30 minutes watching people enter the store and tried to follow their paths, did they search, browse, listen to the machines or go directly to what they came in to buy. We noticed there were many more listening stations located through out the store and that they were about 20 - 30% full. There were more single album stations than ones that were "TRY before you BUY" None of the people we watched seemed to have any issues with the technology. They listened to an average of one song - (30 -60 seconds) before moving to another station or to another place in the store. The age spread of listened raged from students to elderly listeners. The durations of their listing did not seem to depend on age or location of the listening post. We concluded that the idea that one can "TRY before you BUY" is a fantastic way to introduce people to music they might not already know. It seemed to use that Virgin had to introduce a system like this to compete with online downloading of music. Person 1- woman around age 50 listened to single CD for 30 seconds -- noticed she purchased something Person 2 - man around age 30 listened to CD for 30 seconds then moved to another station listened to CD for about a minute Person 3- two giggling students, picked up CDs, dropped them, knocked headphones off its hook, laughed then moved on and did not listen Person 4 - couple in their mid 20s-30s spend more than 10 minutes at the TRY before you BUY" station at first separate, then together We noticed that these listening posts were not the place people gravitated to when first entering the store. As we moved from the entrance and looked at the other listening posts around the store we noticed people semi-dancing to what they were listening to. More people seemed to listen to selected albums than searched the store's database. We also noticed you could scan the bar code on any CD or DVD and view or listen to that item. This interaction came as a bit of a surprise as it did not immediately occur to us that that was possible. We observed someone else doing so, then tried it ourselves and noticed that when we scanned the bar code--or rather placed the bar code on the CD packaging under the scanner on th bottom of the screen it was able to read the content and go to that CD or DVD's page, allowing us to see/listen to the contents on the disk.
ideas for improvement We thought it would be helpful if these machines were connected to the location in the store where the album was located, or perhaps there was some kind of relationship between what people listened too to make purchasing easier. Now it seems commonplace to go into a store and head for a machine, rather than a product. It used to be you looked through record bins, but now you have the opportunity to listen to a song before you buy it. Also in the past maybe you heard a song at a friends or on the radio, but now almost every song can be listened to on line before it is purchased Stores like Virgin have to compete with itunes, so in order to do so they try to make it possible to not only hear a song but to view visuals alongside of one's listening. There were inacuracies within the touch screen interface. First one touched the screen to get it started. Then one had to choose whether to search for a band, or a film or to go to the preselected new releases. If for example one searched the library of the store for a band, you typed in the band's name, then waited a short amount of time -- it was not immediate for the band to arrive. We typed in "COLD" and several names that had the letters cold appeared on the screen. we selected COLDPLAY as that was the band we wanted. Once we reached their page, we had to choose from a list of albumns. Once we selected the album we wanted we waited again (a short 10 seconds) for the names of the song in the album to appear. The we could select wheich song we wanted to listen to, and could adjust its volume by sliding the slider up or down with our finger. There is a disconnect between listening and then hunting through the numerous aisles and sections of music in the store to find the CD. WHile some people know COLDPLAY is rock, not everyone who uses the machine would automatically know where to look. It might be helpful if Virgin said on the screen, This CD is located in the ROCK section filed under "C" or "COLDPLAY". The headphones that are attached to the machines are large and when on they block out everything else around the store. Some people choose to only put the earphones up to one ear rather than surround themselves in the sound. Perhaps less bulky headsets would be more inviting, especially to older people who might not not want to disturb their hair and are unfamiliar with putting on headphones in the first place. |