Interaction Design: The Mobile Percussionist

This paper presents the user centered iterative interaction design of a mobile music application. The application enables multiple users to use one or more accelerometers in order to simulate the interaction with real percussion instruments (drums, congas, and maracas). The ways through which the accelerometers are held, before and during interaction, define the instruments they represent, allowing the swapping of instruments during musical performances. The early evaluation sessions directed to the interaction modes created for each instrument enabled design iterations that were of utmost importance regarding the final application's ease of use and similarity to reality. The final evaluation of the application involved 4 percussionists that considered it well conceived, similar to the real instruments, natural and suitable for entertainment purposes, but not for professional musical purposes.