Teaching:TUW - UE InfoVis WS 2005/06 - Gruppe 09 - Design
Topic
MP3 Archive Visualization
Description of the Application Area and given Dataset
Application Area Analysis
The application area is the creation of a MP3 archive visualisation and its ID3 tags. This should contain information like the name of the artist, the year it came out, name of the album etc.
ID3 tags store information within the MP3 files. Originally ID3 tags held just the basic text-only information about a music file. They had a standard size and standarized information.
The most important and also special thing about this Project ist to create a useful visualisation, which can store lots of information in one place, without having to abstain from a user friendly interface.
Dataset Analysis
In the following Table, you can find the attributes which should be contained in a MP3 file. These attributes are 1-dimensional.
A MP3 file contains only attributes with data.
Attribute | Data type | Description |
---|---|---|
Track | Discreet | Track Name |
Artist | Discreet | Artist name |
Album | Discreet | Album name |
Genre | Nominal | Type or category of music |
Track # | Ordinal | The track's position on a CD |
Disc # | Ordinal | The CD's position in relationship to other CDs in a series, such as a boxed set |
Track count | Ordinal | Total number of tracks on the disc |
Disc count | Ordinal | Total number of discs |
Composer | Discreet | Composer of the track |
Performer | Discreet | Performer of the Track |
Year | Ordinal | The year the track was recorded |
Size | Ordinal | The file size |
Total time | Ordinal | The total time of the song |
Date added | Ordinal | Date when song was added to archive |
Play count | Ordinal | Number of time the song was played |
Play date | Ordinal | Date of last play |
Bit rate | Ordinal | Bit rate of song |
BPM | Ordinal | Beats per Minute |
Sample rate | Ordinal | Sample rate of song |
Location | Discreet | File location |
Kind | Nominal | Kind of file |
Rating | Ordinal | Personal rating |
Comments | Ordinal | Any comments you care to make about the track |
Mood | Ordinal | The mood of the track |
Target Group Analysis
Who should use this visualation technique?
In the past years media is getting much smaller, much better in quality, and also provide more space for our data. If you convert conventional audio files from CDs to the MP3 Format, you can afford to have your whole music collection on one larger hard drive. The business within the musich industry is taking over the internet. You are either able to download song, or listen to them directly through streams. So your favorite song ist just a click away!
Because of the fact that this new art of saving your songs, albums and so on, does not contain the usually shipped cd covers which were a very good visualisation of the audio you are listening to, it has become very important to find a good solution for the visualisation of your music archive.
At this moment the target group are mostly the people who already use the MP3 format to store their audio data, but should expend soon to all the other music-lovers.
What are the characteristics of the target group?
Like we already mentined (2.1) the business with the music is spreading more and more towards the internet. So over the years there are going to be developed more and more solutions (e.g. for children, elders, amaurotics etc.) for the music market place. The target group is going to expand over the years.
Are there any known / often used Methods / Visualisation Techniques?
The most popular program for MP3 files is nowadays iTunes von Macintosh (Apple). This is mostly due to the big boom in the distribution of the iPod in the past few years. In order to manage the music archive, iTunes uses a XML (Extensible Markup Language). In this xml file, the metainformation is stored, independent from the proprietary audio format which e.g. use ID3 tags. The advantage is that the metainformation nevertheless can be edited, even if the audio files don't allow modificatoins to their tags. Besides iTunes contains a visualizer for different music genres and can encode (import) and decode (play-back) music in different audio formats, except for music samples which is bought in the protected AAC-format.
Purpose of the Visualisation
What should be achieved with the Visualisation?
informationen sollen übersichtlich und intuitiv dargestellt werden. der user soll sich auf einen blick die zurechtfinden und wissen das es sich hierbei um information eines musik titels handelt.
Which tasks should be solved?
Es soll möglichst ein Mittelweg gefunden werden das alle User ob jung oder alt viel oder wenig Hörer zufriedengestellt wird. Das Problem an daran ist das Dartstellung oft sehr subjectiv wirken bzw auch sind. Dem einen sind die Dargestellten Informationen zuviel den anderen zu ungenau. Es soll somit ein guter kompromis gefunden und umgesetzt werden
Questions that can be solved using this Visualisation
- Welcher Titel wird im Moment abgespielt?
- Welche Interpreten sind vorhanden?
- Welche Lieder sind vorhanden?
- Wieviel Rock,POP,etc Lieder sind vorhanden?
- Ist die Farbe gut eingesetzt?
- Sind die Informationen gut überschaubar?
Designproposal
Which kinds of Visualisation should be used?
- Suchfenster für Genre & Interpret
- Gefilterte Suchergebnisse werden ausgegeben im Informationsfenster
- Anzeige und Auswahlfenster der Genres
- Playerfenster mit aktuell laufendem Lied und Interpreten
- Scrolling list up & down
- Anzeigefenster des Interpreten
- Farbliche Unterscheidung der Liederanzahl durch Intervalle
The detail pannel stays blanc until an artist or song is selected and anfterwards gets filled with all the information.
Visual Mapping
- Dimension "MP3 Anzahl" --> visuelles Attribut "farbliches Viereck"
Die Anzahl der Lieder wird farblich gekennzeichnet, zB blau für 0-500 MP3s
- Dimension "Interpret" --> visuelles Attribut "Tabelle"
Informationen werden im Anzeigefenster als Tabelle angezeigt
- Dimension "Genre" --> visuelles Attribut "Tabelle"
Informationen werden im Anzeigefenster als Tabelle angezeigt
Description of Used Techniques / Applied Principles
Possibilities of the Interaction
Mockup(s) / Fake Screenshot(s)
References
http://www.dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/id3tags00.php
http://home.real.com/product/help/rhapv3_ts/en/Track_Info_Edit.htm
http://netzwelt.de/lexikon/ITunes.html