Michael DeVries

Walkman has long been known for being a forerunner on the mobile music scene. The question was asked, "How are they making music accessible on a handset?" The project looked at the entire Walkman handset, but took a deeper look at music. The portion shown here provides a look at the stand alone, or airplane mode.

Research Design

• Evaluate the 600i against 400+ tasks and user experience design constructs as part of an initial investigation into developing the heuristic evaluation methodology we would use for future evaluations.
• Review in more detail the music sections of the handset such as playing a song, finding a song, and listening to music while on an airplane.
• Conduct a competitive comparison against what Sprint was accomplishing at the time. Review functions and user experience for advantages and deficiencies.

Listen to Music on the Airplane

• While the face of Walkman has changed over the years, the emphasis on music has remained at it's core. Thus, to access music easily throughout the UI would be a natural assumption of the design.
• Access to music is available through a button on the front, and through the Menu. For instances of general use, then, feature availability lives up to it's name.
• How about on the airplane? Is accessing the Music only, or airplane mode, for music listening pleasure simple? The answer, unfortunately, is no.

The Sequence




1. First, the user must find the settings. While not displayed here, "Settings and Tools" is accessible through the main menu.
2. Next, the user needs to determine what to look for. The answer is in the Startup Menu, but this is the object through which the airplane mode is available, rather than the feature or task itself. Is a user likely to have "startup menu" in their schema for airplane mode? Likely not. This leaves the user to hunt for the feature.
3. Impact. In daily use, music is easily available. However, it's that time you get on a plane and are counting on listening to your music that now becomes a chore, and task failure isn't any further off than the closing of the aircraft door.

• Heuristic evaluation
• Competitive comparison
• Task analysis
• Communicating usability impact