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These photos are of the second version of our prototype.

Our app runs on an android phone. The phone was represented by a 5''x7'' index card.

This screen appears when the app is first opened. (The a, d & d thing stands for our names.) We have a section that says "No saved songs", and below that a "+ Start new song,"

Click "+Start new song." The menu bar at the top reads, from left to right, "Record, Play, To start | Undo, Redo | Save, Exit."

Below that to the left we have "Track Properties," with an image of a speaker and an eye (for toggle sound and toggle visible). We used to have a piano here, which you could tap to change the instrument, but we took that out in the second iteration. To the right of that we have the track, with each of the lines representing and labeled with a note (a, b, c...), the timer across the top denoting how far into the song we are, and a red vertical line where you can set the point in the song you're at by dragging it around with the dragger on the bottom. 

Finally, the bottom is labeled "Tracks", and has four colors (here labeled red, green, yellow, blue). Red currently has a box selection around it.

The first task is to record a melody. When record is hit, the red line (here represented by a blue line) progresses across the track. The user hums or sings into the phone and a line of the appropriate color is drawn. Here the line is supposed to be red, since the red track is selected.

When recording begins, all other icons on the menu gray out, and the record button turns into a stop button.

After the user finishes singing (two notes here), he presses stop. The menu returns to the original menu, and now we have some notes on the track.

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Say the user taps on one of these notes to edit it. The note plays, the interface zooms into the note (the note stays the same color, and if there were other notes nearby, they would also be visible in this view) and a transparent overlay pops up with these options. You can manipulate the note by dragging it or extending and shortening it (dragging a note causes it to play all the notes it's dragged to.) We actually tried two alternatives for this note-editing view; this zoomed-in interface, and a not zoomed-in interface where you edit the note straight on the track. The zoom, we hoped, would require less accuracy of users to get the exact note lengths they want, but it was difficult to tell which was more effective in the paper prototype, because our "playback" wasn't very accurate anyway.

X exits this mode without changes, OK saves changes, and the trash can deletes the note.

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Say the user drags the note down, then exits the mode. The note now appears lower on the track. If the note were dragged below the track, the lines on the track would become more dense to accommodate the lower note.

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The user presses save, then exit. The song is now visible on the main screen, with its title, time of last edit, and options to rename, export, save as, and delete.

These buttons weren't actually implemented in our paper prototype

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Briefing

Our project is called VoiceComposer, and it's intended to let users quickly record a melody they're thinking of onto their smartphone.

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