TL;DR:

I conducted 3 stages of research and user testing in the process of redesigning a CD player, with the attempt at revitalizing the medium for the next generation.

When/Where

2016 / South Bend, IN

Role

UX Researcher / Designer, Visual Designer, Sole Contributor

Duration

2 Months

Background

The challenge was simple: pick a product, any product in existence, to redesign.

I have an old Onkyo CD player given to me by my parents, and grew up with a significant collection of CD's in the form of albums, audio books, etc. but even I was getting to the point of listening to virtually all of my media through streaming platforms like Spotify and YouTube.

So, I took on the challenge to try and redesign this, in a way that might keep the physical medium relevant for the next generation.

Ethnographic Research

At the outset, in order to understand pain points and room for improvement beyond my own subjective experiences, I recruited multiple test users, gave them specific tasks to perform without telling them how, then observed and recorded observations as they attempted to do so.

Participatory Research

The next phase was participatory: we invited potential users to a session (with pizza, of course) and provided supplies for them to generate ideas and design their own dream product.

Evaluative Research

As I was starting to finalize my design, we performed a round of evaluative research, where I recruited more potential users to use a prototype of the new interface, and recorded observations about their ease of use and sentiment as I made final tweaks.

Final Product

I finalized the interface, along with an interactive prototype that showcased the main features of the application, keeping all of the research and feedback I received in mind. I finished this project with a 3D-modeled concept for what the actual product would look like with the screen, and individual CD's, rendered within.

This was a conceptual project without real constraints, so if I were to expand on this project I would have definitely done more research on the technology of CD players, and fleshed out more of the hardware design aspect.