Shopping

Understanding what stores currently sell

We visited several stores in order to understand what aspects of a music player are important to users. However, we discovered that customer sales representatives found the functional aspects of players more important than its form or aesethics.

Initially, we approached a customer sales representative at the Apple store and asked directly whether they could help us with our research project. Interestingly, the direct approach was a challenge, because some of the stores were not open to research.

As a result, we visited stores playing the roles of real cube farm workers searching to purchase a new digital music player. Here, we approached customer sales representatives and asked them what players would be best for our work environment. Through this guise, we visited Office Depot, Best Buy, and Target. When asked what made a player attractive, customer sales representatives were interested in in what they believed to be customer's needs rather than aesthetics. Interestingly, customer sales represenatives believed that the battery power and the storage space of the player were the most important aspects of the player.

Specifically, customer sales representatives find attraction in:

• Space size
• Functionality
• Battery power

The players we studied did not have much variation in player form. The mobile players looked all similar--small size, wired headphones and a small control panel. The stationary players were similar as well--larger in size than the mobile players, often with two speakers and usually plugged into the wall.

At the end of our shopping, we looked toward "plug and play" players. Through our personal experience and user interviews, we found that taking music from a home environment to a work environment was important. Workers often take music with them while on the commute. We further looked at this realm in our media research.