Sharing Music Presence

During the summer of 2005, I worked at Motorola Labs in the User Centered Solutions group. Previous studies by this group had found that there was a potential to create social connectedness by sharing real-time information about music your friends were playing. To inform the design process, I built a rudimentary prototype system and deployed it to a small group of users. During the course of the study, I interviewed users, observed their use the system, and collected audio diaries about their experiences. I designed and conducted the study myself, with input from an anthropologist in the group. I analyzed the resulting data and wrote a research report summarizing my findings, including the implications of my findings for future designs in this area. Based on my findings, I designed and built a more substantial system, using J2ME for cell phone code and PHP to handle the server-side functionality. Based on the success of my work, the group has continued the project, building a more robust and refined prototype.

The documents resulting from this work are not yet publicly available.