HCI with portable media players

Content:
This post is about how portable media players have a variety of characteristics in their HCI design.  I am going to use the HCI presentation's usability requirements' goals of usability, universality, and usefulness that Debbie C. and Islam G. have also used.

Usability:

Pros:  Portable media players can be light weight and easy to transport.  Also their light weight can make them comfortable to hold over long periods of time.  Portable media players can be so small that they conveniently fit in a standard pants pocket.

Cons:   The devices can be so small that they can be easy to drop out of someone's hands and suffer heavy damage from falling on the ground.  Additionally, some have battery lives that are only a few hours.

Universality:

Pros:  Portable media players can be found at stores around the world.  If one gets broken, replacements are often not hard to find.  A lot of manufacturers make them and distribute them globally.  Competition between global manufacturers has been driving innovation and lower prices with them.

Cons:  New portable media players manufactures may find the barrier to entry in their market high because of all of the existing manufacturers of portable media players.

Usefulness:

Pros:  Some portable media players offer sharp and colorful video playback and high quality audio playback.

Cons:  They can move around in someone's hand when that person is trying to watch a video.  That moving viewing experience can be not as entertaining as if the video stayed still in one place while it was being watched.  In addition, the video size can be somewhat small which makes viewing videos not as interesting as on larger screens.

Posted by:

Nate