Category: Testing and Evaluation

During the final testing and evaluation period, I carried out some user testing to check the usability, accessibility and general aesthetics of the site. The user testing was carried out with 10 individuals with ages ranging from 13 to 74, however they are all web users so know the basic functionality of the web.

This process involved observing the participants whilst they were on the site and they were asked to think out loud so I could understand the thought process better. This task generally went well and they all agreed that the web site was self-explanatory with clear headings and the ability to return to the home screen using the logo. I was satisfied that the site is user-friendly.

The next stage of the process involved asking the participants questions about the website. Here is the list of questions in full –
1. What is your opinion on the colours?
2. What is rMusic?
3. What does rMusic do?
4. What functions would you add to the site, if any?
5. Does the website make you want to read more?
6. How clear is the information on the site?
7. Would you return to the site?

When the participants were asked about the colour palette used on the site, I received comments such as ‘Modern’, Up-to-date’ and ‘Appropriate for the style of the website’. One participant did mention that it might be a good idea to change the images on each page to make the pages more individualized, however the colour overlay brings unity to the site.

When asked ‘What is rMusic?’, the participants didn’t know how to answer which leads to believe that my site needs a mission statement that is clear and obvious on the home page so people know exactly what rMusic is about. I received answers such as ‘A charity?’ and ‘A Music Therapy site’. This is something that I will adjust on the website.

When asked ‘What does rMusic do?’, the participants again didn’t know how to respond but the answers were a bit more accurate with comments such as ‘a website for people’s stories about music’ and ‘a site that helps with mental health’. This is something I will improve on when writing the mission statement.

Question 4 was ‘What functions would you add to the site, if any?’, and only one responded with a few features such as ‘Add a short sentence on the home page about what rMusic is’, which is something that I am looking into anyway. Another feature was a dropdown menu or search bar, which is something that I will be looking into once there are more stories however I personally do not think there is a need for a dropdown menu or search bar when there are only a few stories to look at.

When asking the participants ‘Does this website make you want to read more?’, I received mostly positive comments such as ‘Yes it makes me want to follow social media pages to keep up to date’ and ‘The short abstracts make you want to keep reading the stories’, however, one did say that Music Therapy isn’t their thing so they wouldn’t like to read more.

The participants all agreed that the information within the site was clear, as it used ‘informal language’ and had ‘readable text’, therefore it was ‘easy to read’.

The last question was ‘Would you return to the site?’ and the participants answered with 70% (7 out of 10) saying yes and 30% (3 out of 10) saying no as there was no reason to use the site however they would recommend to someone who might be interested in music therapy.

Overall, I think the user testing was useful and the main points to improve on would be to 1. Include a mission statement, 2. Change the images within the site to add variation and 3. Change the block texts to short statements so users can skim read and still understand.

After completing a Udemy course and watching numerous YouTube videos to try and teach myself xcode and swift language, it became a worry that choosing to create an application was above my technical abilities and would affect the final project as I couldn’t implement the main features. After organising a supervisor meeting and discussing the potential options, I have decided that a website and social media focused project would be better suited to my skills as I can use my design knowledge, as well as audio recording and video production. Instead of coding an application from scratch, I will be using the html coding and inserting it as a web view into xcode. I am confident that a website based platform will be just as beneficial to the target audience.

As part of my digital media project module we had to do 3 presentations. One of the presentations was a ‘work in progress’ presentation which was an informal evaluation carried out by class peers and the lecturers involved in the module. The aim of this was to see if we were on track according to our Gantt Chart that we made at the beginning of the project and to evaluate the work that has already been done.

For this presentation I was just coming into the production stage after having completed the pre-production and early research stages. This meant that I had just started the website and the application coding, however had a prototype of the application and completed all of the design aspects including a gif to possibly use in the promotional video for the product.

The feedback I received was mostly positive across the four categories; progress, visual/ aural treatment, technical issues and product realisation. I received 65% on average from my peers and 65% as the actual awarded grade for the presentation overall. Some of the positive comments I received were ‘good strong brand identity’, ‘professional layout with good colour and font choices’. The critical comments focused on the technicality which was expected since I had just started the production. I had some feedback on the website and application which stated the logo and website header was confusing as it reads ‘rr music’ which is something I will look into. Overall the presentation was very helpful and has given me some pointers to work towards and fix along the way.

On the 17th January, I had my second meeting with Dove House Hospice with another one of their Music Therapists called Patrick. Patrick did Computer Science and Music at University so he was a bit more up to date with the technology side of things. He was really interested in the project and gave some helpful tips and advice on the user journey of the application. We discussed ways that may make a user use the application after the user is introduced to music therapy and potentially progresses onto face-to-face sessions. This is where we thought of the mood tracker through the use of colours. We did think about musical notes being a tracker with sharp and flat notes being the indicators, however, we thought this may be a bit too technical and may put people off if they do not understand music score. Patrick said that the most challenging part of Music Therapy was getting people on board with the idea that it could be just as beneficial, if not more than, another type of therapy. This is where I thought of the idea of using rMusic as the journey from the first interaction with the patient to the actual face to face session. Perhaps using a leaflet with a QR code that people, like Patrick, could give out to patients and their families to introduce them to Music Therapy but in their own time. Especially as Hospices can be quite overwhelming by themselves, without the bombarding of information. rMusic could introduce them in a subtle way and encourage them to take the next steps into therapy.

On the 9th January I went to Dove House Hospice, the external partner to my project, to go visit one of their Music Therapist’s called Briony Ming. During this meeting we discussed the demographics of Dove House Hospice’s clients. Briony mentioned that it is mostly younger people from 10-18 years old and older people who are either in the hospice with a lifelong illness or older people who have just lost a loved one. This is where we discussed possible ways to attract the middle age group and perhaps creating an introductory application that the music therapists can recommend to people to try out and to introduce them to music therapy.

Briony and I discussed various ways people use Music Therapy and how the sessions differ depending on the person. One of the ways that intrigued me was the option of the client’s story to be recorded and made into a DVD with a slideshow of their images. After the meeting I tried to think how this process could be mirrored into the application and this is where I thought of the idea of having the feature ‘Stories’ where users can listen to other people’s stories that relate to music and hopefully become inspired or help them think about their own stories as a result of this. I think a key part of Music Therapy is learning about your own identity through the use of music and I thought this could be a unique way for people to share their thoughts and experiences.

The first survey created for this project was created to collect general views on Music Therapy from a diverse group of people of all ages, gender and association with music. As this survey was only shared on my social media pages, this will have limited the geographic location, age and background of the respondents however, this still gave a general idea of people knowledge of music therapy.

My survey generated 100 responses with the majority of respondents (72%) aged 17-34. The other 28% were divided across the rest of the age groups varying from the categories ’13 and under’ with 3% and ’65+’ with 2%.

My results showed that 48% of my respondents would consider to sing or play a musical instrument at least every day. However, 22% of my respondents would say that they do not sing or play a musical instrument ever.

47% of the respondents have heard of Music Therapy however they do not know what it is. Only 15% knew what Music Therapy is and know what it entails. 26% haven’t heard of it but are interested. The rest of the respondents (12%) haven’t heard of it and are not interested.

After a brief explanation of what Music Therapy is, 70% agreed that they are either very likely or likely to consider Music Therapy if they were feeling low. 15% of them said they would be neither likely nor unlikely and only 15% said they would be unlikely or very unlikely to consider it.

39% of the respondents said they have had some form of therapy in the past, whereas 61% had not. This could be an indication that I was trying to persuade the respondents to not only consider Music Therapy but to consider therapy as a whole.

35% of my respondents said they would prefer therapy through the use of an application on a mobile device which is why I have chosen to include a webpage that people can interact with as well.

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