We began this week by brainstorming potential assumptions about our problem, and identified potential key aspects of our problem space that would be worth investigating.

Firstly, we believe that many DJs may feel intimidated to play vinyl mainly because of the learning curve. While DJs may be trained in how to play vinyl during orientation, it seems to be far easier to simply play a CD than cue a vinyl record. We want to further investigate this difference, and see if helping DJs overcome the learning curve that comes with understanding how vinyl works.

Secondly, we think that the labeling of the vinyls themselves may be another prohibitive factor. Many of the vinyls in the station seem to be absent of proper labeling, as it is hard to identify artist, genre, or even tracklist as many of the vinyl covers are frayed off or missing altogether. If DJs have very little idea of what the tracks they are actually playing, we believe that they would be far less likely to play that music.

Finally, we’ve considered that KTRU DJs may not play vinyls as they may be unaware of how diverse/interesting the collection really is. Many DJs may associate vinyls with being more antique, or filled with music that is less interesting/modern. We think that this assumption may prevent many DJs from exploring vinyl as the actual content has not been promoted to them enough.

These were our main assumptions that we derived from the identify step, and we look forward to challenging them as we begin to interact with our users and stakeholders during the immerse process.