The Musical Journey Shuffle, Part 2

In Part 1, I posed a question I pondered while doing some product development research for a recent client:

When listening to music, creating iPod playlists or compiling music CD's, are people more inclined to the "shuffle mode" (random generation of songs in a collection, creating a new listening experience each time) or to the "musical journey" (purposeful ordering of music in a way that is meaningful to the listener)?

I generated an online survey, sent it off to 30 people (with instructions to pass it on, if possible) and collected data over a bit more than a week. The questions attempted to gauge preferences across several different measures (musical tastes, listening habits, musical collections, etc.) that I hoped would provide some insight on the question posed above.

The results:

• A strong majority identify themselves as having "eclectic" musical tastes (rather than being limited to only a few genres), and as listening to a variety of radio stations (rather than sticking to one or two stations on the dial).
  
• A strong majority say they enjoy having many different genres of music in a single playlist/CD, rather than listening to a single genre at a time. When creating a playlist or CD, they say they prefer to include many different genres of music, rather than sticking to a single genre.
  
• A strong majority say they like to be surprised by the next song in a playlist, rather than knowing what comes next. However, about half say that they intentionally randomize songs and genres in playlists/CDs, while the other half say that they carefully order their music in a way that makes sense to them.
  
• Similarly, about half of respondents believe that the songs in their playlists/CDs follow a natural progression, while the other half compile playlists with little regard to order.
  
• A majority of respondents say that they don't like being "jarred" when a slow song is followed by a fast up tempo one (or vice versa); however, about the same number say that are indifferent to having a song be radically different from the one preceding or following it.
  
• Finally, a strong majority of iPod users surveyed (4 to 1) say they listen in shuffle mode more than 50% of the time, with half of those indicating that they listen in shuffle mode 80-100% of the time. However, while most couldn't venture a guess about the habits of family and friends, those that did estimated that family and friends listen in shuffle mode less than 50% of the time.

The first two bullet points weren't at all surprising -- it's almost expected that people consider themselves as having broad musical tastes and having listening habits that support them. Such data would seem to set the table for a preference toward "shuffle mode."

However, the next three bullets would seem to indicate that there is no clear cut preference for either practice. Even the iPod usage data in the last bullet is confounding -- it's almost as if users think that "shuffle mode" is a cool functionality that only they know how to use.

One conjecture was touched on in Part 1 -- that people do indeed take time to create "musical journeys," but mostly when they have a specific task or reason for doing so (to create a workout mix, mood music for a function, etc.). Otherwise, the explosion of iPod usage has made random generation of music from entire collections the favored choice for recreational, "non-task" listening.

Whatever the interpretation, it would seem that future developers of online music experience and delivery systems would do well to allow their users to do both, rather than emphasizing one over the other.

My sincerest thanks to all who participated.

The Musical Journey Shuffle, Part 1

In another life, I spent some time making money as a club deejay. Many factors contributed to my short stay in the field -- short money, bad hours, and overall lack of talent, among others. One in particular stands out, however -- it was pointed out more than once, by more experienced deejays, that I wasn't very good at creating the "musical journey."

According to this concept, you start from a musical Point A to a Point B, with each song feeding from and building on each other in a seamless flow of melody, rhythm and tempo. So, for example, Point A would be the unobtrusive music played as patrons arrived at the club, began ordering the first round, and scanned the club for new faces. The goal would be to take everyone steadily along for the ride to Point B, when the dance floor was in full swing, the waitstaff couldn't keep up with the drink orders, and the music ruled the room.

The musical journey is also prevelent in the way people made mix CDs and, now, make playlists -- aerobics instructors are notorious for this, starting the music at "warm up" and building a steady seamless journey up to "total impact," then down to "cool down." (Runners do this too.) I recently burned a CD that went from Lounge to Soul to Blues to Bluegrass to Folk/Pop to Classic Rock, all within 24 songs. (And the result wasn't bad -- my old DJ cohorts would be proud.) Listening to songs in a pre-programmed, "natural" order would appear to be the result of humans' innate urge to interpret and make sense of all experience.

What, then, to make of the popularity of "shuffle" mode?

"The Serendipity Shuffle," by Leong, Vetere, and Howard (2005), suggests that listening to familar songs in the context of "shuffle" mode helps facilitate serendipity (an instance of making fortunate discoveries by chance or accident). In effect, they say, shuffle mode creates a random event never before experienced by the user, allowing him/her to make new discoveries and unexpected connections to memory, sensation, emotion and environment in a way that is personally meaningful. While cautioning that such experiences cannot be determined solely through design, they maintain that a deeper understanding of serendipity and an emphasis on facilitating it through design will broaden the parameters for determining what constitutes a rich and satisfying user experience.

While doing some product development research for a recent client, I came across a lot of literature indicating that the future of online music delivery and experience will lie in the ability to help customers make more personally meaningful experiences through music -- which presumably would take on the dynamic of the musical journey rather than the shuffle mode.

While I would assume none of us prefers one over the other all of the time, I'm wondering which is the more viable concept that designers should be focusing on. Does our innate urge to create sense of the chaos tip the scales in favor of the musical journey? Or has shuffle mode so infiltrated our conciousness that randomness is now the preferred choice?

I'm planning on conducting a little informal survey of friends and family, iPod users all, to see what their opinions are. Results (whenever I can get them collected and analyzed) will be forthcoming in "Part 2."