Competitive Analysis

Bleep

Tasks performed and results

Since Bleep did not have a genre search feature available to me, I couldn’t test the usefulness of it. I did test sorting the search results, but couldn’t achieve any sort of sorting. Search results appeared organised by releases and tracks, with no option to edit the sorting features.

Areas of difficulty

Very sluggish to browse music. Slow scrolling. All links are too small to click easily. Everything is too tightly packed in causing difficulty to see things and differentiate. Overall, the design is far too small and could be stretched out considerably.

Visual cues and their effects

1. Charts list / middle column
   Charts list has been placed in a prominent place, but the list itself suffers from a lack of strength due to its size and colour. This design is better than the iTunes design due to it having a clear focal point, and only having one selected release instead of overloading the user with too many albums is a wise design decision.
2. Left column / new releases
   The albums in the left column clearly have less prominence than the centre column due to it’s size. Because of this, it is clear to the user where they are meant to look first. Although it is quite untraditional to put important information in the middle section instead of the left column, this design works. The left column has a good amount of small images for new releases and various other sections, but the only problem is lack of text on the releases. It is not instantly clear upon one glance what these albums are, so users will not be interested. It is important to make the homepage as clear and accessible as possible, and I don’t believe the left column achieves this.
3. Right column / checkout
   Whilst it is a good idea to be able to see the checkout at all times, I think too much of this design has been wasted on the checkout column. When the website first launches (a time when nobody could have anything in the basket), there is a whole third of the design dedicated to the empty basket. I don’t think that the checkout needs an entire column for the site, and just a subtle link to the checkout on the homepage would have sufficed. I plan on implementing a link into my design, rather than showing the checkout at all times like on the Bleep website.

Effects and usage of colour

The light green on grey design works effectively, but it is the subtler shades of green inside the website design that suffer because of low contrast. These low contrast areas are arguably some of the most important headers and pieces of information too - put there to lead the user around the design. When I come to choosing colour for my design I will make sure I have high-contrast colours over the entirety of the design, paying particular attention to the headers and most important information.

Audio Jelly

Tasks performed and results

I performed the genre list test, but found out that Audio Jelly also only provided a 1 level genre list search. However, the genre list was a little more comprehensive than iTunes store. Audio Jelly didn’t fare as well when I searched for music as all that the search results produced was a list that wasn’t sorted in any way. It wasn’t possibly to sort the search results in any way.

Areas of difficulty

The lack of ability to search by artist is a massive oversight, and seriously hinders the value of the search feature on this site. With only a 1 level genre list search and limited search features, Audio Jelly becomes very difficult to search for anything.

Visual cues and their effects

1. Centre top section (animated banners)
   It is clear that the Audiojelly design has taken a lot of influences from the iTunes Music Store, and has a very similar layout; albeit better implemented. The top three banners are there to advertise the newest music, and they also slowly rotate like the iTunes Music Store. They rotate at a nice speed, making sure the user doesn’t have to wait a long time to see more of the images. On some of the images they have written text underneath them, which is a similar idea I would like to implement. However, in this design the text is too small for most people to read comfortably, so I must make sure I make the text slightly bigger, and implement the ability to be able to resize the text without breaking the design.
2. Extras and account information box
   One of the best features of this design is the information box at the top of the website that allows you to perform certain common tasks. Unfortunately the text is a little bit small on the buttons and the headers, but it is a good feature to implement nonetheless. I do feel however that it detracts from the logo, and if I was to implement a similar feature I would make sure that I would separate the box from the logo so the logo is still the first visual cue that a user sees without any distractions. I think that a ‘My Account’ box is a very important feature to implement into the design, and is one I shall be featuring prominently in my design.
3. Music Player
   The third that would catch a user’s eye quickly is the music player on the right hand side. It is given prominence in the design by making it larger than the rest of the features, but seems pointless to be so large, other than to be able to see the tracks you have queued up for playback. I will be implementing a music player into my design, but I will not be making it so prominent.

Effects and usage of colour

Audio Jelly have used a lot of grey in their design and as such gives the website quite a dreary feel. You don’t feel excited when first visiting the website as so little is in colour. I understand the reasons behind this - it allows the music covers to stand out more and other banners - but I feel that too much grey has been used.

Even the logo blends into the background and completely loses its focus from being in another shade of grey. I would have considered having the logo in full colour at least.

Comments on audio cues

After searching extensively for examples of online stores for examples of the use of sound cues, I have to report that to the best of my knowledge, one doesn’t exist on the Internet. To find examples of sound cues on the internet, I had to search wider to incorporate any website that uses sound cues.

Japan.illbe.net uses a very basic sense of audio cues for two purposes: when the mouse is placed over a link, and when the link is clicked. These sound cues work well as they are subtle, and the website also has background ambient sounds to go with the audio cues. The inability to turn off the sounds while you are viewing the website can become annoying after repeated visits. In this example, the sound cues are quite important as some of the links are visually slightly too subtle, so this helps the user identify what is a link, and what isn’t.

Dirk Lambrechts provides sound in their design too, but sound cues are used on this website to give the user feedback when the loading has completed. I think this is a good implementation of sound cues as some users may click away to look on a different website if the loading times are long, so if they leave this website open in the background they can come back to it once they have received audio feedback that the web page has loaded. Similarly to the illbe.net website this design also provides feedback when hovering over and clicking links, but in this design it serves little purpose. It is obvious where the links are, but it is difficult to turn the sound off on this website as the volume control doesn’t look like a volume control and is very small at the bottom of the page.

Of the three designs that I decided to look at for audio cues, Design Charts seemed to have the most grating audio cues. Every time a link is hovered over a small clicking noise can be heard, then a slightly quieter clicking noise is played when you click a link. Once again, there is no ability to turn the sound off, which is very poor usability and just annoying for any users that would like the sound off.