Me, my Shelf and I : Designing Meaningful Digital Collections

Me, my shelf and I

Designing meaningful digital collections

Theo Nordahl

Abstract

Personal media collections are becoming increasingly digitised with physical representations of music, film, games and books being replaced by virtual counterparts. Through qualitative fieldwork, this thesis examines the relationship that people have with traditional collections, and therein seeks to outline the aspects of which we find to be meaningful and enjoyable. Furthermore, this project attempts to apply these qualities to the design of digital media collection services. The research reveals that elements pertaining to identity, curation, presence, sharing, preservation and status are key. In addition to the fieldwork, a market analysis of current digital media collection services is carried out and drawn upon in the development of a design concept. The concept is used as a platform to discuss potential solutions addressing the unfavourable characteristics of digital media collections.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank my supervisor Li for helping me to get on the right track and inspiring me when I most needed it. I would also like to thank all of the participants of this project, who invited me into their homes and offered me all of their thoughts, opinions and ideas.

Table of Contents

Abstract ... 2

Acknowledgement ... 3

Table of Contents ... 4

1

Introduction ... 6

1.4 Relevance for interaction design ... 7

1.5 Target group ... 7 1.6 Ethics ... 8 1.7 Delimitation ... 8 1.8 Structure ... 9

2

Background ... 9

3

Methods ... 10

4

Market analysis ... 14

5

Fieldwork findings ... 21

5.1 Presence ... 21

5.2 Storage and organisation ... 22

5.3 Curation and contents ... 22

5.4 Sharing ... 23

5.5 Preservation and identity ... 24

5.6 Fandom ... 25

5.7 Status... 25

6

Design phase ... 26

6.1 Ideation & Sketching ... 26

6.1.1 Concept alternatives ... 26

6.1.2 Concept choice motivation ... 27

6.2 Concept – Virtual Library ... 27

6.2.1 Setting... 27

6.2.2 Feature overview ... 28

6.2.3 User testing ... 33

7

Discussion ... 33

7.1 Prototype features ... 33

7.1.1 Overview and visibility ... 33

7.1.2 Positioning and selection ... 35

7.1.3 Customization ... 35

7.1.4 Book preview, notes and highlights ... 36

7.1.5 Book Marks and trophies ... 36

7.2 Potential features ... 37 7.2.1 E-book condition ... 37 7.2.2 Hidden shelf... 37 7.2.3 Lists ... 38 7.2.4 Pass-on books ... 38

8

Conclusion ... 38

9

References ... 38

1 Introduction

1.1 Context

Humans have a pervasive history of collecting things. These collections of ours come in many different forms, whether it be shiny rocks, precious artworks, bottlecaps, stamps, or Lord of the Rings memorabilia, is up to the collector, but all of these examples have something in common. They are all governed by their physicality. This also used to be the case for one of the most common things to collect in the modern-day, with music collections being found in almost every home some 30 years ago. Stacks and stacks of CD’s and vinyl records, now mostly gone. With the digital revolution came the introduction of MP3 and the possibility to store your entire collection in the back of your pocket. In the U.S, digital music consumption now accounts for 89% of all music consumption, 78% of that amount belonging to streaming services (Statista, 2019).

However, music is of course, not the only type of media that is subject to digitalization. In more recent years, services like the Kindle offers users the opportunity to, in addition to their top ten albums, carry all of their books around without breaking a sweat. With the astounding success of digital music, one could expect the e-book market to follow suit, but this is not yet the case. Last year, publishers of physical books in the U.S made $22,6 billion in revenue. This is in stark contrast to the total revenue of e-books across the country, which only amounted to $2,04 billion (Handley, 2019).

As an avid book reader myself, I have recently started to consider whether I should take the leap and convert to e-reading, as it is called, but something is holding me back. I know that I would enjoy the practicality of an e-reader in addition to the environmental aspects, but my issue is that I really enjoy having the physical books that I like, on my bookshelf as a sort of memento. Something that reminds me of the story and what I learnt from it. In addition to this, the books are then on display for others to see. And although it sounds superficial, I think it is something a lot of people can relate to, wanting to collect and showcase the media that they consume and enjoy to their environment.

1.2 Aim

In this thesis, I aim to explore, from an interaction designer’s perspective, what makes collecting physical media so much more exciting than collecting their digital counterparts. With this knowledge in hand, I aspire to, through digital prototyping, develop an artefact enabling users to enjoy their digital collections to a greater extent, and therein creating opportunities for

meaningful interaction. I will attempt to achieve this by letting the work be inspired by the moments that we, in our interaction with physical collections, take pleasure in. In this way, I am seeking to set a sort of precedent for companies that want to evolve their digital media-centric services to revolve around collection, rather than just storage.

1.3 Research questions

The thesis work began with an exploratory research question and one applied to the aim of the thesis:

- What are the different qualities of keeping physical media collections, and why do we find them enjoyable?

- How might the enjoyable aspects of physical media collection be applied to the design of their digital media equivalents?

As the thesis work progressed, curation became one of the main focal points, therefore the following question was posed to help answer the initial research questions:

- In what ways can we design digital media interfaces to elicit meaningful curatorial behaviour in users?

1.4 Relevance for interaction design

This thesis is a study of the design and development of digital collection systems and interfaces. The Malmö University master’s programme describes interaction design as the following (Malmö University, n.d.):

“Interaction design concerns the design of digital artifacts and digitally mediated communication, with a focus on use experience.”

The findings in this project are generated by focusing on precisely that, the use experience of collecting media, both digital and physical. These findings are subsequently applied to the design of a digital prototype.

1.5 Target group

The primary target group for this study is people who keep collections of either physical or digital form. Physical media collectors are included to gather insights about what users enjoy about keeping traditional collections, as well as how they tend to and care for them. Collectors of books, vinyl

records, CDs, video games, DVDs and Blu-rays are accounted for in this group. While digital media collectors are included to determine which currently existing features of digital media collection-services contribute to the aim of this thesis. Avid users of Spotify, Soundcloud, Steam, Audible, and Kindle, are accounted for in this group.

This thesis includes interviews of individuals from both groups. Although, with most of the interviewees belonging to both categories to some extent. This is since keeping, for example, a bookshelf and using music streaming services like Spotify is very common. This applies to most of the people that I know, therefore, in order to diversify the pool of users that account for the data in this study, the number of individuals who collect only in the form of small bookshelves combined with casual Spotify usage are restricted to a minimum. In addition to this, a few especially passionate collectors, both digital and physical, were sought out for interviews to serve as “super-users” and were asked to give an account of their unique perspective on the matter and their relationships to their collections.

1.6 Ethics

All of the interviewees were briefed before their interviews on the project and its purpose. They were asked to read and sign a consent form stating that all of the information gathered would be handled and presented anonymously. In addition to this, they were informed that their opinions and thoughts would be used only for research purposes. Which will, at a further stage, be able to be read by the public. All photographs of homes and collections on display in this thesis are taken and shown with the consent of their respective owners.

1.7 Delimitation

This thesis will, in its deconstruction of collections, focus on aspects relating to keeping and taking care of collections rather than gathering them. Despite this, how one might transform the experience of finding and exploring exciting digital media to be as engaging as, for example, flipping through old vinyl cases at a yard sale and finding a rare record, or going into a bookstore and finding a beautifully covered version of a book you love, is also a really interesting task. However, for this thesis to be able to assess any aspect of collections properly, I am, within this timeframe, limited to focus my efforts to a narrower scope.

2 Background

2.1 Related studies

Over the past fifteen years, there have been several studies examining different aspects of how people relate to their digital collections e.g., Brown, Feinberg, Kaye, Kirk and Petrelli et al. (2006, 2012, 2006, 2010, 2010). These studies have contributed to how we perceive digital collections as something that can be meaningful and personal, rather than just being a method to store digital files.

However, this project will relate its findings to three more recent studies in particular, i.e. Gruning, Feinberg and Odom et al. (2018, 2014, 2014). These studies attempt to answer similar research questions to the one posed in this thesis and will, in addition to helping set the expected outcome of this project, also be used to reflect upon this its findings.

Gruning presents, in her study of paper and e-book reading, that visibility is important in order to elicit organisational action and to form meaningful relationships between users and their libraries whether it be digital or physical. Gruning furthermore suggests, through her fieldwork, that current e-book systems, such as the Kindle, is designed to be used and perceived as a representative of a single book that users are currently reading, rather than representing users’ entire e-book collections and the possibilities therein. Gruning points to that many of the participants in her study reported that they do not remember the contents of their e-book libraries and that they seldomly, if ever, re-read the e-books within. The online literature community website Goodreads was found to serve as a supplement for many of the participants who were avid e-book readers yet missed the visibility and display options that a physical book collection offers.

Odom et al. define and describes placelessness, spacelessness, and formlessness as inherent qualities of virtual possessions. These qualities encompass both beneficial and detrimental aspects of collecting and interacting with virtual possessions. Placeless as in being able to be accessed anywhere and from multiple devices, although contributing to anxiety surrounding the preservation of one’s virtual possessions and whether they are safe. Spaceless, in the sense that they do not take up any physical space, although simultaneously making it hard to gauge and maintain the size of a collection, leading to less meaningfully curated collections. And finally, formless as they can be copied, combined, and re-mixed infinitely without signs of deterioration, making it hard to distinguish a copy from “the original”. In addition to this, it disallows possessions to change and alter together with its owner, thus impeding meaningful relationships to form between them. The use of metadata is proposed as an approach to tackle the unfavourable

aspects of these qualities while maintaining the opportunities that they present.

Finally, Feinberg et al. studies curation of collections. They articulate a curatorial model that asserts framing of character in a curated set, to be the focus of curation. And by this meaning that it is the overarching theme or story that connects the different objects in a collection that is important. Furthermore, they argue that in order for a collection to have value to someone other than its creator, it must be curated. Meaningful curation in their view, consisting of selection, arrangement, and most often overlooked, description of the curated set. Feinberg et al. subsequently attempt to answer the question of how such behaviour can be elicited in users. Among their insights, they found that when users are presented with the source library as something to read and comprehend, as opposed to search merely, they are more likely to create meaningfully curated collections. In addition to this, they mention that when users are aware that the display of the curated set is going to look the same for them as it does for its potential viewers, they are motivated to care also for the literal framing of the set. Here referring to the visual structure, embellishment and general appearance of the set. And in doing so, contributing to the initial goal of strengthening and clarifying the curated set’s frame of character.

3 Methods

This chapter presents the different methods used to generate insights in this project as well as why they were used.

3.1 Literature study

In order to contribute to the field surrounding the study of collections, it was necessary to review already existing literature. By doing so the thesis is given a solid ground for the research that is conducted to build upon. In addition to this, literary review makes sure that work that is carried out has not already been completed by someone else.

3.2 Market analysis

A market analysis was carried out to investigate and assess the current state of digital collection services. In doing so this project hopes to build upon the elements that are, in these services, well designed, as well as, taking note of the elements that that are assessed to be less than ideal. Thus, avoiding reinventing the wheel and allows the project to propel further than otherwise

possible. In order to achieve this, features pertaining to collections of each of the services will, in this chapter, be accounted for and discussed.

3.3 Qualitative interviews

Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted in two phases in this project. Firstly, to answer my initial research question concerning why we find collecting physical media to be so enjoyable, as well as which aspects are the most important in regard to this. These interviews were held in each interviewee’s respective home so that the conversation could be had with the participant’s collection nearby. This enabled them to show and discuss objects from their collection and allowed me to observe how they interact with it, albeit in my company. Five collectors of different kinds participated in this round of interviews.

All of the following names are made up in order to maintain the privacy of the participants, while the rest of the information remains as accurate as possible.

- Olivia 39, has been collecting books for almost 20 years and e-books for 5. Her physical collection consists of one tall bookshelf filled with biographies, fiction, nonfiction, science-books, children’s books and more. She shares her collection with her husband. Olivia has 72 e-books and she reads at least three times a week. She also uses both Spotify and Soundcloud.

- Claes 59, collects books and has been throughout his life. His wide bookshelf contains works of fiction, nonfiction and biographies, but also crime novels, comic-books and various memorabilia that he has collected over the years. He also shares his collection with his partner. He was once an avid user of iTunes but is now using Spotify for most of his music consumption. He has over 10000 songs downloaded on his iTunes and boasts more than 70 playlists on his Spotify account.

- Elin 24, collects video games. She has two wide bookshelves filled with games from many different consoles like Nintendo 64, XBOX, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch. Merchandise from several games are also prevalent in the collection, this being showcased in between the different sections. In addition to this, she has a small vinyl record collection consisting of only her favourite albums. Elin also uses Spotify.

- Alexander 26, boasts a 700+ computer game collection on Steam. The genres vary from first person shooter (FPS) and roleplaying

games (RPG), to strategy games and more. He spends an average of 2 hours gaming a day. Alexander also has a medium sized collection of comic books and manga. Like all of the formerly mentioned interviewees, he also uses Spotify.

- John 26, wouldn’t label himself as a collector but he does keep a bookshelf together with his girlfriend of approximately 50 books. He usually reads non-fiction books with topics spanning philosophy, design and self-improvement, while his partner often reads fiction novels. Additionally, he keeps a vinyl record collection of around 30 records. He is an avid user of Spotify with the playtime of songs saved totalling to 80 hours.

The second round of interviews consisted of only one interview. The interview was connected with a user test of the artefact prototyped in the later stages of the project. Participant 1 i.e. Olivia 39, was the only interviewee to be asked for user testing and a second interview. The reason being that she is the only interviewee with former experience of collecting e-books. Additional subjects were attempted to be found, however, due to the complications of covid-19 in combination the limited time frame of this project, these efforts were unsuccessful.

All of the interviews in this project were semi-structured (Muratovski, 2016), enabling me to ask follow-up questions and dive deeper into topics that were more specifically related to their personal collection and experiences. This allowed a natural conversation to take place, while still being able to return to the script when necessary.

The interviews were, with the consent of the interviewees, recorded. Because of this, full attention could be directed toward the participants and the thoughts and opinions that they were trying to get across. The recordings were then transcribed and analysed. This analysis is available to read in chapter 5 of this thesis.

3.4 Sketching

Sketching was used in this project two-fold. As a means to generate ideas as well as way to communicate them. Sketching allowed me to approach the findings of the initial research and interviews more creatively, and thereby letting me to come up with a wider range of ideas that would, for me, otherwise be difficult to achieve. In addition to this, some of the interviewees were asked to use sketching as a tool to communicate their ideas.

3.5 Prototyping

Also prototyping was split up into two stages. First, a low-fidelity paper prototype was constructed to try out different user-flows and interactions. The goal here was to quickly iterate to a point where the main features and structure of the artefact were set in place.

Adobe XD was used to create all of the subsequent iterations of the high-fidelity prototype. Adobe XD offers its users the tools to create prototypes that look and feel like they are designed and developed by a professional team in a very short matter of time. Especially so, with the addition of the “auto animate” feature which makes transitions between element states behave as they would in a proper functional prototype. Hover states is another novel feature of Adobe XD that lets its users implement on-hover animations to their designs. These features motivated me to choose Adobe XD over for example, Sketch, of which I also have experience.

The development of an actual functional prototype was considered, although due to time limitations this was dropped in favour of the XD prototype which offered all functionality required to conduct user testing without extensive programming.

3.6 User testing

As previously mentioned, one user test was conducted. The test was performed only by participant 1, i.e. Olivia 39, due to her experience with e-book libraries. Even so, testing proved to be a useful resource for some additional insights at the later stage of this project.

The participant was first asked to interact with the prototype on her own while thinking aloud and exploring the different elements within it. The participant was then asked to start from the beginning, although this time around, she was guided through the artefact and was allowed to ask questions. Some of the questions started smaller discussions about the different features. As mentioned above, the user test was followed by a semi-structured interview, with the aim of evaluating her experience further.

The design phase i.e. sketching, prototyping and user testing is documented and accounted for in chapter 6.

4 Market analysis

The following chapter is an assessment of the different features that are prevalent in the most common digital media collection services. Features relating to the collections themselves and the expression and display of them, are given the most attention since they are more accurately within the scope of this thesis.

The selection of digital media services for this study was made based on which services have the most wide-spread usage in Sweden. Furthermore, in order to gather a diverse set of insights, selecting a wide range of services that distribute different types of media was prioritised.

4.1 Spotify

Spotify is one the biggest music streaming services in the world and is in Sweden used by 67% of all internet users (Svenskarna och Internet, 2017). The service allows users to search for and stream unlimited amounts of music for a monthly fee. Alternatively, users can use the service without cost, but with ads being played between every couple of songs streamed. Their catalogue is nearly limitless, containing almost all major artists.

While Spotify allows users to gather a library of music that they enjoy, users do so without actually having to own anything.In addition to users not having the physical albums in their possession, they are not keeping a collection whatsoever. They are merely accessing and cataloguing a part of Spotify’s immense collection.

I think this poses an interesting question whether legal ownership matters or not from psychological ownership perspective. Sinclair and Tinson (2017) suggests, through qualitative interviews, that user investment of time, energy and effort into post-ownership services like Spotify, correlate directly with users’ experience of psychological ownership. Building upon these findings, Danckwerts’ et al. (2018) study demonstrates that music-based psychological ownership is further positively related to users switching from a free subscription plan to a paid premium plan.

Spotify offers a personalised experience in two ways. First, in the form of user data generated recommendations, containing songs that users have played in the past. But also including songs that other users, who have similar taste in music, are listening to. These recommendations come in the shape of custom playlists and radio channels. Second, as a result of more intentional choices of customization. One of the main options available to users in this category is to create playlists with custom names, descriptions, display images and of course, cherry picked contents from their vast repertoire. Playlists created are displayed in a list of their own where users are given control over what order

the playlists should be in. These playlists can in turn be displayed on the profile page of your account, allowing users to decide which ones are to be shown and the ones that are to be hidden. These profile pages, being visible to the outside world, are the faces of users’ respective accounts and collections. Within the profile page, users can choose whether or not to show a list of their recently played artists. Followers, as well as, users followed is also on display. However, users are not given the option to hide this (Spotify, n.d.).

Figure 1: Four Spotify playlists of varying clarity, as seen when browsing the public playlists of a Spotify user.

While browsing the public playlists of a user, the information available about the contents of the playlists is limited. As is seen in figure 1, title, name of the creator, follower count, and display image chosen by the creator, are displayed for each of the playlists. When a display image is not chosen, a mosaic of the albums covers first of the first four songs will be displayed instead, which in a lot of cases, proves to be more informative than the often-chosen images (Spotify, n.d.).

These different factors contribute to the content of users’ collections being difficult to grasp at a glance. Especially so if titles and chosen display images are non-descriptive or vague about playlist contents.

4.2 Soundcloud

Soundcloud is a music streaming service with a different approach than the likes of Spotify and Apple Music. Soundcloud has more of a creator focus. Browsing their website almost gives the impression that they assume that all of their users are either artists, DJs or producers in some way. Spotify, and services like it, have a clear distinction between artists and listeners. Soundcloud, on the other hand, doesn’t do this. User profiles look the same regardless of users being artists or not, displaying lists of users’ tracks and albums that they have released on the website. Which, in the case for a lot of users, is empty. If this is the case, user created playlists and reposts takes the

place of any original content that could have been displayed (Soundcloud, n.d.).

In terms of tools that can used when assembling a collection on Soundcloud, users have the option to create playlists with the same kind of customisability available in the formerly mentioned services. Users can also favourite-mark tracks, essentially adding the songs to a playlist called “Favourites”, with it being more easily accessible than other playlists (Soundcloud, n.d.).

Users have the option to become “Pro Unlimited” members which, being marketed towards artists, offers users many perks in terms of releasing music and marketing. “Spotlight” is one of the features included in this subscription allowing users to choose up to five playlists, tracks or albums to be featured at the top of their profile. This feature works well as a marketing tool, although it also has potential as a valuable tool for expression as well. If this feature was accessible for non-artist users as well, they could use it to show visitors what albums that they currently enjoy or which playlists that they are really proud of at the moment (Soundcloud, n.d.).

With Soundcloud comes the first really clear example of a user’s personal experience with their collection being completely different to the experience that another user has when exploring that same user’s collection. What I mean by this is that in Soundcloud there is a page called “Library” meant for use when the owner of the collection wants to interact with it. In addition to this there is a separate page called “Profile”, managed also by the same user, but meant for the eyes of other users (Soundcloud, n.d.).

This, by today’s standards, is, as we will see, very common in services like these and might even seem like an obvious design choice. However, this is in stark contrast to how physical collections works. A collection of vinyl records, for example, is accessible in the exact same way for its owner and curator, as it is to one of their guests. The same being the case for other types of physical media collections.

4.3 Steam

Steam is a video game digital distribution service. It is available for use in all popular computer operating systems in addition to Android and Windows Phone. The service is essentially a marketplace where users can browse and purchase games from their library, containing over 34000 titles. All games purchased through Steam must also be played through Steam and cannot be accessed otherwise. This has led to users gathering large collections on the platform. The service also offers community management and game modification tools making it even more attractive to PC gamers. In 2019 Steam passed 1 billion created accounts and currently has around 90 million active users (Lanier, 2019).

Steam, like Soundcloud, splits up the way that users’ collections can be experienced in two. There is the library tab, where users can view and access all of the games that they have bought through the service. Steam lets users customise this page by adding their games to different lists called “collections” similar to how playlists work in music streaming services. Users have the option to make “dynamic” collections as well, meaning that users, instead of hand picking every game that is to be included in the list, can select tags to sort the games automatically into the collection (Steam, n.d.). In addition to collections, users can customise their library page even further

Figure 2. Steam's library page

Users have the option choose what kinds of “Shelves” that they want to include on the page (Figure 2). The content of these shelves can consist of either: collections of games that users have created, a collections view (Figure 2) where all of a user’s collections are listed, a list of games that you have most recently played, a list of games that has the most recent friend activity, or simply a list of all the games that a user owns. The shelves themselves can be additionally customised by sorting the games in a range of different options. Users can sort them by alphabetical order, number of friends playing, % of achievements completed, hours played, date last played, release date, size on disk and review score. Users can choose the order of the shelves as well (Steam, n.d.).

All of these features translate to a what seems to be a satisfying experience for users who enjoy collecting games. The key here being that users have plenty of freedom to arrange their collection how they want, and thereby giving users opportunity for self-expression. Although when it comes to how users’ collections are expressed outwards in the form of their profile pages, the experience is much different.

Figure 3: A typical Steam profile page.

The focal point, which in the library page had been the games themselves, is here shifted to also include evidence of achievement. Profiles consist of a top section containing information like username, description, profile picture and Steam account level. Below, users can choose to display different kinds of digital cards containing information about either their library of games, or their achievements within those games (Figure 3). Also here, users have the option to display a card containing a list of recently played games, however the rest of their collection is here instead represented by a card displaying the amount of games and DLC (downloadable content) owned. As well as the amount of reviews that the user has written and the amount of games that they have wish-listed. By clicking on any of these figures, visitors can access the full list of games or reviews respectively pertaining to that number. When browsing a user’s full list of games, the number hours spent in each game is proudly displayed besides it. Users can also display a card showing their favourite game along with the number of hours spent in that game, as well as the number of in game achievements completed. Additional cards available for display include: a card showing screenshots taken in game, a card displaying the most notable in game achievements that the user has gotten and finally, and most interestingly a card displaying a selection of “items” as seen in figure 3 (Steam, n.d.).

The items that can be displayed can come from a multitude of different games, but it is items from the games Counter Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) and DOTA 2 that are most often displayed by users. The items in question are called “skins”. Skins change the appearance of either weapons or characters within the games and can be collected by purchasing randomised digital packs. Similarly, to how a trading card game works, the packs contains skins

with different amounts of rarity. With the added feature of skins being tradeable, this has created a digital economy in which players trade and buy skins with each other for real money. In addition to skins having different rarities, they also have different “exteriors”, i.e. condition of the skin. These range from Factory New to Battle Scarred with each step in between increasing the amount of scratches and damage that the weapon has, which is often seen as unpleasant, decreasing the value of the skin (Yamamoto et al., 2016)

Rarity is an aspect of collecting that undoubtedly makes it more exciting for a lot of people. In the collection of physical items and media this is also often times present. This is the case of, for example, first editions of widely appreciated books and vinyl records that were only pressed in low quantities. Also here condition is important, with items closer to mint condition usually being valued higher. Games like CS:GO show that it is possible to capture some of that excitement of rarity also in digital landscapes. This thesis will expand upon this possibility in a later chapter.

4.4 Amazon Kindle

Kindle is a series of e-readers that lets users browse, buy, download and read e-books on the device. Kindle is also available as a tablet and smartphone app with Kindle e-books being shared across all devices. And in terms of e-books to choose from, the Kindle store now contains over 6 million e-books (Amazon - Kindle E-books, n.d.).

While the Kindle has many options for users to customise their reading experience, the same cannot be said for how users keep their collections. Although this is the case, users are not entirely without choice. Once users have bought an assortment of e-books they can divide their e-books into “Collections”. Kindle Collections function similarly to how they do in Steam and is essentially just a list. Once users have divided their e-books into Collections they can choose to view their library as a grid showing only book covers, a list showing a smaller image of the cover as well as the title and author, or a Collections view in which users have easy access to their different Collections. Users also have the option to sort their books by either most recently read, title or author name (Amazon Kindle, n.d.).

Thus far, the Kindle looks fairly similar to the other services mentioned in this analysis, but where the Kindle distinguishes itself is with its lack of an inbuilt community system. There is no separation between personal library and profile. This is since profiles of other users simply cannot be accessed. The only sign of other users that can be found within the service is seen when browsing reviews of an e-book. This means that users have no means of

interacting with the collections of other users whatsoever, unless they show their Kindle library in person.

One of the perks of owning physical media is that once you buy a product, it is completely yours to do with however you please. Within this realm of possibilities sharing, lending and passing on books are of great social value and is perhaps something that was taken for granted in the times before digital ownership. Digital media is really easy to share, but it is, on the other hand, really hard to do so without also copying it in the process. “You wouldn’t steal a car” was the first sentence used in an anti-copyright infringement campaign by media distributors when digital media sharing was at its most rampant in the 2000s. Insinuating that stealing a car and copying and distributing a movie should be perceived as equally immoral.

Because of this ease of distribution, online piracy, as it is called, is undeniably illegal and its practitioners can, in most countries, face several years in prison. Sharing of digital products is therefore something that appears to be difficult to tackle when developing a digital distribution service. Streaming services get around this issue by not letting their users actually own anything at all. And in the case of the Kindle, although users buy e-books individually, they do not own them either. With digital rights management, or DRM, technologies, companies like Amazon ensure that copyrighted content cannot be shared without their consent. For Kindle users this means that they merely buy the access to certain e-books, instead of buying and owning them legally (Warner, 2019).

Despite this, Kindle users do have the option to lend out books to each other, although highly restrictedly so. E-books can only be lent out for a period of 14 days and are then returned to their “owners” library. Additionally, a Kindle e-book can only be borrowed once and is thereafter locked to their home library. Just like in the physical world, the “owner” of the book does not have access to the e-book while it is being lent. And finally, not all e-books can be loaned because of restrictions imposed by publishers (Amazon – Lend Kindle Books, n.d.).

4.5 Audible

Audible is, just like Kindle, a digital media distribution service owned by Amazon. Although, unlike Kindle, Audible lets users search, browse, buy and listen to audiobooks instead. Audible has around 200 000 unique titles for users to listen to and is the most widely used service of its kind (Audible - About, n.d.).

Audible lets users gather their audiobooks in lists called “Collections” as well and lets users customize their collection viewing experience by being able to sort their audiobooks by recent usage, title, author and length. Additionally, users have the option to view their audiobooks by genre along with started,

not started, downloaded and finished audiobooks. Audible includes a Collections view as well (Audible, n.d.).

Unsurprisingly, Audible does not offer community related features either. However, Audible has one feature that distinguishes it from the Kindle, this being a sort of achievement system where users can see their listening level and their badge collection. Users listening level is determined by the number of hours of audio books that they have listened to, ranging from 10 hours for the title “Newbie” to 500 hours for “Master”. Users can earn badges by completing different listening challenges e.g. listening to audio books for a certain number of hours in a row, re-listening to books, listening at certain times, finishing a book in one stint etc. Badges can be shared through social media (Audible, n.d.).

5 Fieldwork findings

This section will give an account for the insights gathered in the qualitative interviews conducted. The findings have been split up into eight categories each discussing a different aspect of collections as well as their perceived pros and cons. These eight categories are the following: Presence, Curation and contents, Storage and organisation, Identity, Preservation, Status, Sharing, and Fandom. Several of these categories are closely related to each other with some of them bleeding into each other. They will therefore be ordered by how close each one is to another.

5.1 Presence

Unless collection is happening secretly and in a hidden location, physical collections will often have presence somewhere in the space where its collector resides. This was, anyway, the case with this project’s interviewees. Several of them listed their collection’s decorative qualities as something that they enjoy. Mentioning the beauty of book and record covers as reason enough to keep them visible in their homes. In the case of John 26, physical media was not only used as a means to beautify, but also as a way of creating a wall with the help of a wide bookshelf. Thus, splitting the room in half, creating an alcove for him to study in. Also Olivia 39, uses her bookshelf for more practical measures, saying that it is not uncommon for her wine glass to end up on one of the shelves, with the explanation that she treats her bookshelf as she would with any other furniture.

In addition to the topics mentioned above, presence and display of collections lay the foundation for several of the other categories that will be explored in this chapter.

5.2 Storage and organisation

Olivia 39, is very aware of the space that objects occupy not only in the physical sense but also in terms of mental space. She likes to reduce clutter as much as possible, with lesser amounts of things around her leading to a calmer and more focused state of mind. Therefore, being able to stow away and organise belongings is a priority for her. Despite of the fact that she finds books to be beautiful, this is one of the reasons that has driven her towards using an e-reader. Olivia finds satisfaction in being able to carry around 70+ books with her at all times, but an even deeper satisfaction in being able to not be distracted by them when she doesn’t want to. Olivia’s physical collection has been a subject of change due to the same philosophy. She explains that in order declutter, she re-organises her collection semi-regularly. In the process getting rid of and donating any books that she doesn’t plan read or re-read. She continued by saying that the act of organising itself is, for her, a therapeutic experience which she also enjoys. When Olivia listens to music she either listens to Soundcloud where she mostly listens to DJ-sets or she uses Spotify. Despite feeling as though she has not found a good way to use Spotify.

“Making it easier to have an overview, making it easier to organise, not getting lost in all the opportunities you have is actually something quite crucial.”

As previously mentioned, she likes to keep order and finds it difficult to do so. She points out that users get a lot of features and opportunities, but that it ends up being messy. She wants more tools to structure her experience and organize her collection.

5.3 Curation and contents

Earlier in this thesis, curation was defined as a term indicating the selection, ordering and description of artefacts or media that have some kind of value, either physical or digital. Another source describes the term curation as taking care of something, stemming from the Latin word curare (Good, 2017). Together, these outline a rather wide definition which could encompass several of the other categories in this chapter. Thus, in order to draw a line somewhere, this section will focus on the care of artefacts, as well as conscious decisions based on contents that collectors make. The latter type of behaviour is similar to organization accounted for in the previous segment but is distinguished by the reasoning behind the act. Stemming from personal taste and types of content, rather than practical reasons.

Claes 59, considers his collection of books to be mostly uncurated. He thinks that his bookshelf is the result of him living and in doing so accumulating objects that he has either at some point wanted, found or received. He

continued by saying that the only times that he has done some kind of selection based on personal relationship or enjoyment have been whilst moving. Although Claes does not perceive these behaviours as curation, they, according to the above definition, certainly could be. However, what he does consider to be a result of curation is his Spotify playlists.

“I have playlists cataloguing music into different genres but it’s the ones that I have made for specific occasions that I’m proud of.”

He explained that he likes creating playlists that are meant to be paired with a certain activity or mood. Claes has created playlists for occasions such as running, cooking, mingling, relaxing and working, as well as for specific times such as weekend mornings, weekend nights and rainy days. Despite the fact that his intention behind his playlists are for himself and his family to enjoy, he also appreciates when others take notice of his creations. He explained that a couple of his playlists have over 20 followers and that his most popular one has 37. He continued by saying that even though it is quite a small amount of people that follow his lists, he really enjoys seeing that some of the followers are from completely different parts of the world, far away from Sweden. In those moments he feels like he is contributing to the world in a way.

All of the interviewees create playlists on Spotify and therefore could be regarded as curators to some extent, but when it comes to curating as an act of taking care of one’s collection, Elin 24, seemed to do so with particular awareness.

Elin usually has friends over. Whether it be parties, smaller get-togethers or gaming nights, visitors tend to give her physical video game collection a lot of attention. During gaming nights, it becomes the focal point and it isn’t uncommon for some of the games in her collection to be lying around her living room, instead of standing neatly arranged in her bookshelf. Elin is okay with a little bit of a mess, she explained, although once all of her guests have left, she makes sure to re-place her games to their original positions and that each cartridge or disc is in its rightful container. In addition to this, whenever one of her guests re-place one of her games in the wrong position, she notices almost right away and tends to the “problem”. When asked why she does this, she explained that it makes her feel like she is taking care of her collection, rather than being some kind of OCD-like tendency. Elin describes herself as motherly when it comes to her collection. She regularly dusts, and wipes clean her collection in between home visits as well and finds both satisfaction and enjoyment in doing so.

5.4 Sharing

Olivia 39, Claes 59, and John 26, all mentioned lending and lending out of books as something that they do regularly. Olivia explained that she usually

lends books to and from friends that share her interest in literature and that this is something that she misses with her e-books. She continued by saying that even though Kindle offers some functionality in this regard, as mentioned in the market analysis, the heavy restrictions make it useless. Olivia tried the feature a couple of times and has not touched it since.

Furthermore, the interview with Olivia led to a moment where she was flipping through an old bible that used to be her grandmother’s. In doing so, some of her grandmother’s notes and comments, as well as an old leaf, were revealed to her surprise and delight. When being asked about this fortunate accident, Olivia explained that she had not opened that particular book in a very long time but was very happy to see some remnants of her grandmother from so long ago.

In addition to lending books, John 26, also has a special relationship to parts of his vinyl record collection. John’s collection was started by his grandfather gifting him some records of his own personal collection. John continued by explaining that his growing collection has, in addition to having been something that he finds pleasure in, served as a way to remind himself of his grandparents, how nice they are and that he should probably call them. Olivia, John and Claes all share their physical book collections with their partners. However, it is only Claes and his wife who in addition to sharing their bookshelf also share similar tastes in literature. With Claes explaining that, he and his wife usually read the same books and that he finds discussing them with her to be one of the most enjoyable aspects of reading.

5.5 Preservation and identity

Elin 24, described her collection as split in two. The one section is dedicated to games she currently plays from time to time. This section includes mostly modern games as well as a couple of older ones that are brought out when she has guests around. The other section she rarely interacts with if she isn’t cleaning or reorganising. Despite this, it is this section that she holds the dearest. Elin continued by explaining that she has been playing video games throughout her life and that her collection is in large part just a by-product of that. Thus, this other section of her collection consists of exactly that, a record of what she has played and experienced during all those years. So, for Elin, her collection serves as much as a library for nightly entertainment as it does a journal for her to remember what games she played but also, more importantly, the moments with and around those games.

“I don’t play on my 360 anymore, but when I look those games, I get reminded of what kind of a person I was back then.”

Elin sees her collection as a sort of documentation of her life, and therein also as a reflection of her current and past identity. She continued by explaining

that when her collection contains games that she has not enjoyed so much, she feels misrepresented and tends to the issue by stowing it away somewhere hidden.

In addition to Elin, all of the interviewees expressed that they identify with their collections to some extent.

5.6 Fandom

In addition to her video game collection, Elin 24, has some vinyl records, five to be exact, framed on her wall. She explained that she made the selection based on which albums that has made the biggest impact on her life so far. She continued by saying that she has recently switched out one of the records as a new album had entered the top five and taken the place of one of the former ones. In addition to finding the cover art beautiful and feeling that her taste in music is reflected on her apartment walls, she described that when she buys a vinyl record from an artist, she feels like she becomes closer to the artist. When being asked why she thinks that she feels this way she expressed that, she feels like a truer fan when supporting the artist directly rather than just listening to the artist on Spotify. With the impression that artists do not get enough money through the service.

5.7 Status

In his interview, John 26, stated that he did not feel like he identifies with his book collection but that it does indicate what his interests are. John thinks that, if someone were to see his book collection, they would get a fairly accurate impression of who he is. That he is a person who reflects about world around him, has interests in philosophy and design and that he has read quite a lot. He usually reads for self-improvement and to acquire tools to propel himself further in his career, rather than for his own enjoyment. John continued explaining, although slightly ashamedly so, that he also regards his books as symbols of his discipline and achievement, and that he enjoys that people get the impression that he is well read when seeing his collection. In line with this, he also mentioned, looking content, that he thinks that if someone of older age were to see his record collection, they would get the impression that he is more mature than most of his peers.

Alexander 26, when being asked if having a large game collection on Steam is sort of status indicator in the gaming community, he explained that for him this is not really the case. Having a large number of games is, according to Alexander, mostly a result of Steam’s approach to sales, gathering large numbers of games into bundles sold at low prices. Allowing users to collect a high number of games at little cost. Alexander instead described high effort in-game achievements as prestigious, representing skill and dedication. Furthermore, having a powerful custom gaming computer is also something

that gamers respect and desire. This being a representation of wealth, but also of knowledge surrounding computers and their hardware components.

6 Design phase

Having completed interviews as well as background research and market analysis, the project was ready to enter its design phase.

The work that had been carried out in this thesis had, up until this point, given equal attention to various types of digital media distribution services. This was done in order to obtain a complete apprehension of the different aspects of current digital media collecting practices. However, because of time and resource limitations it was not feasible to produce meaningful prototypes for all different kinds of media. A decision was therefore made to direct the prototyping practices towards enhancement of the experience with and around e-book and audiobook collection services. Digital books were chosen as the focus, seeing as the shift to digital has, to a large extent, already been made in both the music and video game industry. In addition to this, both of the digital book collection services analysed in this thesis, lacked central features prevalent in their music and video game equivalents. Although the design phase is being focused on the digital collection of e-books and audiobooks, the findings of this thesis still aspire to apply to the design of digital media collection services in general.

6.1 Ideation & Sketching

The categories outlined in the fieldwork findings were in this project’s design phase used as tools to hone in on the different moments and characteristics, that the interviewees find to be enjoyable in their interaction with their collections. Affinity diagrams were created under each category, in which connections were made between the interviewees’ opinions and thoughts, and the current set of features available to users in existing digital distribution services. The diagrams were subsequently used as the foundation to inform and inspire ideation in the different categories with digital books as the focal point. Ideas were sketched and fleshed out in order to determine their feasibility as well as their potential impact. The higher value ideas were iterated upon by further sketching.

6.1.1 Concept alternatives

Several ideas were developed under each category. However, the ones that stood out included: assigning digital books a state of condition based on how much or how long ago they have been used, fully customisable digital

representation of users’ digital book collections, e-book sharing system where users can lend and trade each other digital books or pass them on indefinitely, adding the possibility for users to choose their favourite covers for their e-books, and implementing an achievement system that rewards users for completing certain reading tasks. With all of these tackling different sides of the issue.

6.1.2 Concept choice motivation

Having conducted qualitative interviews and therein heard that the answer to this thesis’ research question is most likely a multifaceted one, prototyping a single or a couple of these ideas appeared to be somewhat inadequate. By instead combining several of these ideas and prototyping a full featured service proposition, this project is able to engage with a larger portion of the issues presented in the market analysis as well as the conducted fieldwork. This amalgamation will be described in section 6.2.

6.2 Concept – Virtual Library

The prototyped concept is a digital representation of an e-book or audiobook collection, its features inspired the enjoyable and meaningful aspects of physical media collection as well as the components that work well in other digital media content management systems. The concept is prototyped in Adobe XD but is intended to take form as a website application should the concept be developed further. The concept has the working title of Virtual Library.

6.2.1 Setting

Instead of trying to compete with existing massively widespread services like Audible and Kindle, this concept is proposed as an addition to those services and ones like them. This concept would serve as an alternate view to how users experience their collections normally. If, for example, this concept would be integrated with Kindle, users’ e-book collections would exist in the library of all of their Kindle devices, as per usual, however, users would have the added option of viewing their collection in their virtual library, with all of their e-books/audiobooks being represented. Although, rather than simply being an alternative way to access a user’s e-book library, this concept has expression and social interaction as its focal point.

Figure 4. Virtual Library - Main screen

Figure 5. Virtual Library - Book preview blurb screen

6.2.2 Feature overview

The current iteration of the virtual library allows users to view their digital collection, as well as other users’, just as if they were physical ones. Books can be reorganised by its collector by simply dragging and dropping them to a desired location. By hovering over a book spine, it is enlarged enabling users to see its title and author more clearly. By clicking on a book, users are able to preview it individually. While previewing a book, users are presented with information surrounding the book and its contents, as well as information surrounding its collector’s interaction with it. Title, author, page count, blurb

and the book’s front cover are displayed, with the back of the book being visible while hovering over the cover. Date of when the book was read last, time spent reading, as well as the amount of times that the book has been read to completion is displayed, in terms of attached user interaction meta data. If a book has not yet been completed by its collector, the number of pages read will be shown instead.

Users have a set of options while previewing a book. These options, however, differ slightly whether the user viewing the virtual library is its collector or a visitor.

If the user previewing the book is its collector, they can click Read book which gives the user the option to access the book either on the computer of which they are using, or to send a notification to Kindle/Audible enabled devices, that when interacted with directs the user to the chosen book in their digital library. The Read book button is, for visitors, exchanged to a Loan request button. This button would send a request to the book’s collector. If accepted the book is, from then on, available to read for the visitor. The digital book’s collector cannot read the book during the lending period but can still access and preview it in their collection. The same above-mentioned button will, during the lending period be exchanged for a Return book and Reclaim book for the borrower and collector respectively. Pressing one of these will immediately restore read access for its collector while notifying the other part. An additional feature available for collectors when previewing a book in their virtual library is to swap out the cover art of their books. As can be seen on the left-hand side of the Brave New World cover, there is a set of thumbnails representing alternate covers for the same book. When a thumbnail cover is clicked, the preview image in the book preview screen (Figure 4) as well as the book spine in the main screen (Figure 5) is changed to correspond to the chosen cover. However, as is also visible on the left-hand side in Figure 4, some of the thumbnail covers have a darkened appearance overlaid with a lock icon. In the scenario of the above image the collector of Brave New World, has not yet unlocked these two alternate appearances for their book. In order to do so, the collector must reach certain goals or objectives pertaining to how they interact with the book and/or its surrounding collection. For example, the condition that had to be met to unlock the second and, in this scenario, available cover alternative was to simply finish the book. Other examples of potential objectives are to finish the book more than once, read the book for a certain number of hours, or to have collected a certain number of other books from the same author. Hovering over the different thumbnail covers display the objective required to unlock each respective appearance.

Figure 6. Virtual library - Book preview notes screen without visitor interaction

Figure 7. Virtual library - Book preview notes screen with visitor interaction

Clicking on the Notes tab displays highlights and notes that has been made by the book’s collector as well as the page number they appear on (Figure 6). By, furthermore toggling Show notes of other users, highlights and notes

from users who have been lent this particular book from its collector, will also be shown (Figure 7). Ideally, these notes should also be available to be shown during reading of the book. However, this would require Kindle to develop and enable this feature as well.

Figure 8. Virtual library – Main screen displaying trophy gallery

Figure 9. Virtual library - Main screen displaying archive

Returning to the first screen, two buttons are visible in lower right-hand corner. The left button lets users access their trophy gallery. While the button to the right gives access to a user’s archive.

The trophy gallery (Figure 8.) consists of a scroll view containing different achievements and accolades that the collector can be awarded with. Hovering over each one displays their requirements for completion as well as what is

rewarded on completion. Requirements of completion are similar to how users obtain alternate book covers, ranging from: collecting a certain number of books and collecting a certain number of books in specific genres to having read a certain amount of time, reading in different locations and reading during particular times or events etc. The rewards for acquiring trophies are either customisation options for the shelves and background of the user’s virtual library or Book Marks, an in-service currency (both of these rewards will be explained further down below). Once a trophy as been earned, users can drag it from the trophy gallery and drop it for display on the shelves of their virtual library.

The archive of users’ virtual libraries allows them to stow away books that they do not wish to display (Figure 9). Users can scroll or search for books that they have archived. Archived books can be displayed by dragging and dropping them onto the shelves of the virtual library. To store a book currently on display in the archive users can, from any of the main screens (Figure 4, 8, and 9.), drag and drop the book anywhere in the empty space surrounding the shelves. Alternatively, users can simply drag the book into the archive list. Some users might want to hide their list of archived books for various reasons, therefore users will be able to, when a settings tab is implemented, enable and disable archive visibility for visitors.

Figure 10. Virtual library - Main screen displaying shelf texture customisation options

Users can, as mentioned earlier in this section, be rewarded with customisation options for their virtual libraries when they acquire trophies (Figure 10). These options can be accessed by clicking on the customisation icon on the lower left-hand side of the screen. There are three different kinds of customisation options, two for the shelves and one for the background. The shelves can be customised by changing their texture as well as their structure. Texture options include different types of wood, metals and other materials,

as well as plain colours. The structure options let users choose their desired number of shelves, as well as their length and positioning. Shelf number and length options are continuously unlocked as the virtual library grows to accommodate the number of books that a user has. In terms of customisation options for the background, users can similarly choose between a range of different materials, patterns and colours. Hovering over a customisation option reveals how it was acquired. Shelves and background are customised by clicking on them whilst in customisation mode.

Customisation options can, in addition to being rewards for trophies, be unlocked by spending Book Marks. Book Marks is an in-service currency gathered by acquiring trophies that do not reward users with customisation options. Book Marks can also be used to unlock book cover alternatives that are not made available by completing reading related objectives. The number of Book Marks that a user has, is displayed in top right corner of the main screen (Figure 4, 8, 9 and 10.).

6.2.3 User testing

Olivia 39, generally had an overwhelmingly positive reaction to the prototype. She did, however, have some comments and suggestions. In the archive tab she suggested that books have some of the attached meta data displayed in the previews also be displayed in the list. Another of her suggestions were to add the possibility for other media, that one holds dear, to be included in the library, with Olivia mentioning films, albums and personal photos as examples. Thereby, expanding the concept to further liken traditional bookcases. In addition to this, she suggested digital reading circles as a feature as well as a digital book flea market, explaining that many of her physical books are bought at traditional flea markets.

7 Discussion

This chapter will discuss different features of the prototyped artefact, as well as potential future ones, serving as starting points to discuss their relationship to fieldwork findings, market analysis and related work and studies.

7.1 Prototype features

7.1.1 Overview and visibility

One of the most difficult considerations that had to be made during this projects design phase was how to make users’ virtual libraries into something