Abstract
People use music applications to provide comfort and to help keep their minds relaxed and stress-free . During times of reduced social activity, with corresponding increases in social distancing for health and public safety, many people face high levels of anxiety, loneliness, depression, and stress. Music applications can relive these concerns, by providing access to personal music libraries. However, many users make mistakes while using music applications. These mistakes include not noticing an element, taking a long time to complete a specific task, or failing to complete a task altogether. This can make the product difficult to use and challenging to learn, while failing to provide a pleasant, enjoyable experience. In this research, a comparative analysis was conducted with 20 users between 18–24 years old to investigate the interface design and functionality of the Spotify and Apple Music using human computer interaction methods and tools. The findings indicate the differences and similarities between the two user interfaces, indicating which music application platform provides a better user experience, particularly for users seeking stress reduction.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Brougham, R.R., Zail, C.M., Mendoza, C.M., Miller, J.R.: Stress, sex differences, and coping strategies among college students. Curr. Psychol. 28, 85–97 (2009)
Pierceall, E., Keim, M.: Stress and coping strategies among community college students. Community Coll. J. Res. 31, 703–712 (2007)
American College Health Association: National College Health Assessment II: Spring 2015 Reference Group Summary. American College Health Association, Hanover, MD (2015)
Bland, H., Melton, B., Gonzalez, S.: A qualitative study of stressors, stress symptoms, and coping mechanisms among college students using nominal group process. J. Georgia Public Health Assoc. 5(1), 24–37 (2010)
Chorianopoulos, K., Spinellis, D.: Affective usability evaluation for an interactive music television channel. ACM Comput. Entertain. 2(3), 14 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1145/1027154.1027177
Moumane, K., Idri, A., Abran, A.: Usability evaluation of mobile applications using ISO standards. SpringerPlus 5, 548 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40064-016-2171-z
Nielsen, J.: “10 Heuristics for User Interface Design” Nielsen Norman Group (2020). www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/ (2020, April)
Medlock, M., Herbst, S.: UI Traps. www.uitraps.com (2020, April)
Brook, J.: SUS: a quick and dirty usability scale. In: Usability Evaluation in Industry. Taylor and Francis Pub., UK (1996). https://hell.meiert.org/core/pdf/sus.pdf (2020, April)
Schulz, T.: Using the keystroke-level model to evaluate mobile phones (2008). https://norwegianrockcat.com/assets/iris31 (2020, April)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Hai, M., Lacue, A., Zhou, Y., Patel, Y., Roncal, A., Morreale, P. (2021). Usability Evaluation of Music Applications for Stress Reduction. In: Soares, M.M., Rosenzweig, E., Marcus, A. (eds) Design, User Experience, and Usability: Design for Diversity, Well-being, and Social Development. HCII 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12780. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78224-5_32
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78224-5_32
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-78223-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-78224-5
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)