Implicit Interactions with a Peculiar Radio: Designing an Interactive Artefact for Fostering Meaningful Music-Listening Experiences
MSc Thesis, 319p, 2021 | METU Open Access
Sarper Seydioglu
Abstract: Interacting with internet-enabled artefacts has become an indispensable norm of an everyday person’s life as it can reduce otherwise demanding tasks down to a flick of a finger. Whereas consumption and utilisation of vast amount of information have also became a norm for navigating through the world’s digital commodities – rendering almost every single action an informed decision. On the other hand, music-listening is an ephemeral experience per se, yet it became a certainty to interact with extrinsic attributes thereof as prominent music-listening platforms became saturated with information, which isn’t a bad thing in itself; although, having toexperience something knowledgably can also mean forgoing certain qualities of that experience. Even though it still is possible to listen to music through less information-intensive artefacts such as a radio, the advent of technology shows promise for affording a more (subjectively) meaningful experience. The same principle pertaining to how information influences user’s future actions presented itself as a theoretical notion of user experience that is applicable to interactions with all kinds of artefacts: Explicitness of Interactions.
In this study, the goal is to design a music-listening artefact that doesn’t afford utilisation of extrinsic attributes of music to users (as opposed to modern music-listening paradigms); and through that process, to empirically discover how the qualities of information relayed by an artefact may influence the user’s subsequent actions. This is done through a three-part Research through Design process consisting of a Contextmapping research with sensitisation and idea generation phases to which 12 design specialists partook; tied into a consequential well-documented solo design phase.
The outcome involves an extensive literature review with discussions, a methodology for conceptualisation of implicit/explicit artefacts, an empirically derived implicit music-listening artefact, and discussions on Explicitness of Interactions concept.
Design outcome of the Research through Design (RtD) process.