6 - David Earle

The users mental model with regards to YouTube's playlist feature can be separated into two aspects. The first is the user created playlists which are similar to the model users have of a mix-tape: You look up the song you want to be your opener and burn/add it to the tape/cd/playlist. At this point YouTube makes you create the playlist by giving it a name, or add to an existing playlist. Then you find the next song and so forth. Like a mix-tape these playlists are also limited in size, although the 200 songs of a YouTube playlist far exceeds any mix-Tape. Of course a more recent model that is ubiquitous to users understanding of playlists is iTunes, due to its innovation and market-share. The other side of the users mental model of this feature is the favorites playlist. The users mental model of favorite'ing' something is similar to writing the name of the song down in a notebook, or in Notes, or even taking a screenshot of pandora on your Iphone. It's a way of keeping a disorganized and ever growing list of videos you like.

This mental model is relatively similar to the implementation model that will be used by programmers, although much more complex processes will be performed such as allocating memory to the user and and creating a pointer/link from the playlist back to the video page. This is good design because the programmers could have easily used a more implementation oriented model, by asking exactly how long the playlist was going to be from the start and asking exactly where in the playlist to place the song each time one was added. One implementation oriented area of the design was the fact that the user can't watch/listen to the playlist as he/she edits it. This makes it easier to implement but fails to consider that the user will need to go back and forth between the 'playlist playing' page and the 'playlist edit' page to test if to videos flow well together and adjust the playlist accordingly.