Product Testing

Now that the main bulk of the product is finished I felt I needed to test its effectiveness based on my research into creating the songs. My product testing is be based on previous research into emotional responses to music as you can see in an earlier blog post. The ‘circumplex model of emotion is a theory that splits recognisable human emotions into 4 sections and how they occur, which  formed the main basis of my product testing. I began by inviting groups of friends to my flat and asking them to each fill in a brief survey in which they would mark their particular emotional states out of 10, 0 being not feeling that emotion at all, 10 representing feeling that emotion to the highest degree. The emotions the subjects rated are the ones that are featured on the circumplex model of emotion. By doing this I was able to fit each individual into the models 4 emotional states: High arousal/positive impact, High arousal/negative impact, low arousal/positive impact and low arousal/negative impact. I then asked the groups to sit through and listen closely to my product in silence so each of their emotional states would only be affected by the music. Afterwards I would simply ask them to fill out the same survey. By doing this I was able to analyse the emotional state of the test subjects before and after listening to my product. If the majority of the subjects showed emotional change towards the positive impact sections of the circumplex model like my product was intended to do, then I could deem the product a success. Below is a screenshot of the survey the subjects were asked to complete. You can find the full version as a link in my supporting materials section of this blog.

For my research I collected 20 sets of results from 20 different friends and members of family to ensure I encompassed a wide range of material and was able to make solid judgement on my final results. I then plotted my results on a radar graph showing the survey before listening and the survey after in different colours so it was easy to differentiate between the two. As you can see by the examples below, the blue shows the survey results before listening to the product and the red after.

You can see an obvious shift towards the positive emotional sections of the circumplex model from blue to red. I found that out of 20 test subjects, 17 of them showed a shift into a more positive emotional state where as the remaining 3 either remained in a similar emotional state or moved towards the negative emotional sections of the model. This could be down to a variety of factors from entering the test in a particularly bad mood, to personally disliking the style of music they were listening to. However as 85% of test subjects showed a positive emotional response to my product, I would like to deem my research and product as successfully. Based on this, I feel that my work is now ready to be submitted ready for my academic deadline and my clients deadline as well.