Shadowing and Interviews

Understanding music and work

Seven people were approached to observe how music is integrated into their workflow. We asked each of them what devices they used to listen to music. As a result of the observation, several main needs emerged--a need for the players to seamlessly blend with the work environment, a need to not to disturb others, and a need for mobility of the player.

Through this data, we also determined discrete categories of music/work contexts:

• People who worked in a predominantly silent environment that emphasized professionalism
• A fun-working, casual work environment
• Work that requires listening such as answering the phone and many impromptu meetings

User #1 - 23 year old Systems Analyst at GE

• Spends 7 out 9 hours of his day in his cube
• Listens to music to pass the time and break the silence
• Uses headphones but finds that the wires to his PC get in his way while working
• Content comes from his own server

User #2, #3 silent workers
User #2 - 23 year old in business development
User #3 - 22 year old in accounting

• Corporate culture encourages silence
• Listening to music is informal
• Music is distracting to self and others
• Music does not integrate well with certain tasks

user #4 - 21 year old IT intern

• Listens to music on a personal player
• Takes off headphones during impromptu meetings or answering phone
• Leaves player at desk when stepping out
• Leaves player always charging

user #5 - 24 year old financial analyst

• Listens to music from work computer
• Listens to iPod only on way to work
• Prefers using work computer because it "does not use battery power"
• Brings CDs to work and rips them
• Uses windows media player to play music
• Hopes to use a shared music repository, but a firewall currently prevents this
• Listens to music with only one earbud to be aware of surroundings
• Listens to music in random mode, but occasionally selects a specific song
• Music listening patterns not affected by a connection to iPod to work computer which he just figured out how to do

user #6 - 24 year old non-profit intern

• Her work environment was too loud because there was a malfunctioning copier next to her
• Had to share cube with co-worker
• Listened to music while doing all sorts of tasks
• The genre of music depended on the type of work she was doing
• Could not listen to lyrics while writing
• Always feared that she would miss a phone call
• Mainly used a portable radio player
• Switched stations whenever the radio went to commercial