Interviews RockArt Museum Hoek van Holland

For the project of this quarter I have interviewed 6 people from the target group. The target group is families with children. I interviewed 6 parents. First I asked general questions; about what role music plays in their lives and their music preferences. After that I explained the project and our concept.
Underneath you can read the results, some interesting answers and how we use these answers in our project.

Part 1: General musical interests
The ages of the people I interviewed varied from 27 to 51. I interviewed 3 women and 3 men.
For 5 out of 6 people, music is important in their lives. It influences them in all kinds of ways: when they like a song they buy a CD (2) or download it (3), they go out dancing, they go to concerts and listen to music while driving their car. One person said it influences her mood; music makes her happy or sad. Every person interviewed relates music to memories.
Their music taste varies from Deep Purple to Tiësto, from the Eagles to Phil Collins and from the Golden Earring to Robbie Williams.
For most people their music taste has not changed over the years, it only did for one person; from rock to R&B/ Pop.

To the question whether they attach much emotional value to music, most answered neutral (they were given an indication from 1-5 (very little – very much).
Social value scored much higher, an average of 4.
It’s interesting to see that cultural value was important for the women (score 5) but not so important for men (score 2).

All interviewed people agree that it is important to preserve the Dutch musical heritage.
Neither of the people had ever heard of the RockArt Museum in Hoek van Holland.

Part 2: the museum and its goals
After this first part of exploring the role music plays in general in our target groups lives, I explained the museum and its goals.

All the people think it is a good initiative, but only three consider actually visiting the museum some time. If there is to come a ‘National Pop Museum’ (a goal for the RockArt Museum), they would want it to be more than just expositions. They would be interested in musical experiences, making music themselves and a large database where you can find any music related information.
Although only three would visit it, all agree that a National Pop Museum would be an added value to the Dutch society.

Part 3: explaining the campaign
In the third part of the interview I explained the campaign we are planning to start for the RockArt museum. I explained the concept, without showing any visuals yet.

All people answered that they like the initiative and that if they would see it somewhere, they’d support it. Supporting would be done by telling around (4) and if possible signing a petition that the National Pop Museum should become reality (2).

Part 4: visuals of the cards
The fourth part of the interview was showing some visuals of the cards we want to spread with the promotional campaign.

To the question ‘How does this card make you feel?’ five people answered: curious. This is exactly what we were hoping for. But of course one person answered something different. She said she didn’t feel anything and she would throw it away. I showed her another card with an artist I thought she might like more and asked her if this changed her mind. It didn’t because she still didn’t like the artist, but she came to the conclusion that if she saw a card with an artist she liked, she would be curious as well. For the promotion campaign it is thus important we have a big variety of artists shown on the cards.

Because we are planning to distribute the cards in public transport, I asked the people whether they travel by public transport, and if yes by what means. Only three of the six people travel by public transport on a regular basis. Therefore we came to the conclusion that we should distribute the cards at other public places as well. Suggestions from the people I interviewed were: busy shopping centers like the ‘koopgoot’, the airport, the harbor of Rotterdam where all the ferries arrive, cafés (music related places), gasstations or roadrestaurants and the Nieuwe Waterweg (Hoek van Holland, many tourists in the summer).

Other interesting remarks about the cards were:

- Make it clear on the cards that the museum already exists; now I would think there’s nothing there yet and that there is only a plan for a National Pop Museum

- Music is a colorful thing. Can’t the cards be more colorful?

All remarks are taken in consideration and used in the project.

On the back of the card is a URL to the campaign website, www.savetherockart.nl. Five of six interviewed people say they would visit the website after seeing this card.

Part 5: campaign website and (viral) game
The fifth part of the interview. I explained the campaign website and the (viral) game that is attached to it. Four of the six people would play the game. The two who wouldn’t, wouldn’t because they don’t like to give away their email address. I asked them whether their opinions would change if they could win something. This doesn’t influence their answer.
All four would send the game to people they know, especially if this improves their chances of winning.

Part 6: the website
The last part of the interview was about the website for the RockArt museum. I first showed them the current website; www.rockart.nl. To the answer whether they liked what they saw, all six said no. I asked them why they didn’t like it and this were the answers:

- To much information/ chaos

- Takes too ling to find information

- It’s not up to date

- Looks unprofessional

- Looks boring

- Too many colours

- Logo sucks

- Menu not readable

- I hate the scrolling

After that I showed them the prototype we’ve developed for the RockArt Museum and asked the same question: “Do you like what you see?”
One person said ‘No’, five people said ‘Yes, but…’.
I asked the person who said ‘No’, what she didn’t like about it. She answered that she thought it was too black. She did think it looked more professional and organized though. We’ve taken this comment in consideration and will use more shades of grey.

Other comments on the site were:

- I’d like more space, now it still looks messy to me

- I’d like the headers to be bigger

Positive remarks were:

- I feel like watching the movie

- I want to click on the items shown on the homepage (3)

- This looks professional (5)

- The menu looks clear

- I like the search function! (4)

Conclusion:
Altogether I think these interviews have really given me a better view of the target group and that we’re going in the right direction. In general they all like the concept; there are only some minor adjustments we have to make, based on what the interviewed people said. The remarks were really valuable, because they make you see things from a different angle. Everything is taken in consideration and we’ve made some changes already. The final result of the project will be online the 5^th of July.