Flat, Black and Circular: Persona

by Matthew Bambach
For academic purposes only.

User: Dave, 22, Jazz student at MSU, East Lansing, MI

Background Information:
-avid listener of jazz, constantly looking
up different artists to pick up influences
-seeks jazz music he has not heard before,
wants to expand his musical horizons
-eager to learn more about his craft
-college student on a budget
-owns a laptop computer with an
Internet connection, iPod, record player
-uses computer for about 1-2 hours a day,
mostly for doing research
-favorite jazz artists are Bill Evans,
Dave Brubeck, and John Coltrane

Goal: “I would like to buy a jazz CD by a experimental jazz/jazz-influenced artist I am unfamiliar with as long as it is fairly quick and easy to find and is under $10.”

User Profile: Dave is a full time jazz student at MSU, specializing in playing jazz piano. A lot of his inspiration comes from the musicians he listens to and has seen in person, so naturally he listens to a lot of music on a daily basis. He would like to expand his music collection legally and by supporting jazz musicians, but he finds this to be difficult at times, as he is a college student on a limited budget. He cares deeply for the music he makes and is very enthusiastic about expanding his knowledge. He feels that in order to become a well-rounded jazz musician, he should get exposure to all varieties of jazz (except for smooth, obviously) as well as artists heavily influenced by jazz, and familiarize himself with where jazz has been and where it is going. Dave has a fairly full schedule, so he doesn’t have much time outside of his homework to sit down for hours researching jazz musicians and sampling their music on his own accord. As a result, most of the music-listening recommendations he gets are from his professors and peers, mostly within an academic environment. At this point in his listening adventures, he is specifically interested in listening to artists in other genres of music who had been significantly influenced by jazz, as well as more experimental jazz, as he hasn’t had much exposure to either of these categories. What he feels he lacks at this point are the resources necessary to easily and efficiently find such artists in his exploration.

Information Needed: Similar artists, customers who bought a certain CD also bought [x], ability to sample tracks prior to purchase, artist influences, artist profile pages containing discographies and other relevant information, descriptions of genres/sub-genres & artists that best represent different genres/sub-genres, album reviews (by customers, experts, employees), album recommendations (based on browsing), most popular tracks/albums/artists within a certain genre/sub-genre, how people have “tagged” a band

Motivators: Choosing FBC: Read good things about the store on the Internet, heard good reviews from other people, one of those price comparison sites showed that FBC had a good cresearched other record stores and wanted to try one out, likes supporting music culture, heard this store had low prices, had time to kill and wanted to check out some music, heard that the site was very informational, advertisements, into music that big box stores wouldn’t have, wanted personal advice

Choosing music: wants more exposure to different varieties of jazz music, wants to familiarize himself with a specific artist’s work in order to form an opinion, would like to be surprised with an item he has not experienced before, wants to be more “in the know” about jazz music, wants to check out an artist/album recommended to him (read a good review somewhere, word-of-mouth, etc.), heard a song somewhere and wants to buy the album it is on

Problem Setting: monetary limitations, doesn’t have an expansive amount of knowledge about jazz and jazz-influenced music, doesn’t have a whole lot of time to browse because of his busy schedule