Socially Augmented Music Discovery with Collaborative Playlists and Mood Pictures

Abstract This article describes the iterative design and user evaluation of a prototype, which enables collaborative music discovery by creating playlists and associating and expanding them with mood pictures. The concept was evaluated in two field trials by a total of 45 individual users, with both trials containing 30 users and 15 of the users attending both of the trials. The results from the two field trials are presented under three main themes: socially augmented music discovery, user-generated content enhancing music discovery and social usage patterns emerging from the usage of such a system. Users formed ways to facilitate social interaction and music discovery through the playlist content they shared. Social usage patterns reveal the social activities users performed with the service in the trials. The findings can be used as design implications for mood-based music service designers.