Apple Podcasts Redesign
UX/UI Design
Overview:
This project is a podcast application UX/UI design project. It aims to build a sustainable platform ecosystem by creating high customer loyalty through new content discovery interaction. The process starts with the re-examination of the needs of current ecosystem actors and ends with high fidelity prototypes.
Year:
2020
Focus:
UX Research, UX/UI Design, Prototyping
Skills:
Qualitative research (interview & observation), Concept Ideation, Visual communication, Wireframing, User flow sketching
Project background
How design can help create a sustainable podcast platform ecosystem?
The initial motivation is to examine the emerging needs in the existed podcast platform and propose a new podcast application concept that solves these problems.
The market and popularity of podcasts are growing. This is proven by the increasing number of podcast shows, listeners, and paid advertisements. Without a doubt, Podcast is heading toward a more complex ecosystem-level platform. However, most of the podcast applications are still used as a "tool", instead of being seen as a "community," which has been proven to be popular in the market competition.
Figure of platform as a "community" vs. platform as a "tool"
Hypothesis
Based on my market research and context inquiry, I proposed the following hypothesis to set a clear direction to this project:
If the user loyalty of podcasters and listeners grows stably, the podcast platform will attract more sponsors, thereby creating a sustainable ecosystem.
Breaking down the process
To test the hypothesis, I selected the 4-step Double Diamond design process – Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver.
During the 2-week time frame, I divided each step and the tasks as follows:
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Discover – 4 days – UX research, problem statement
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Define – 2 days – reframing design brief, setting design goals
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Develop – 5 days – flowchart, wireframing
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Deliver – 3 days – final application design
Research
Understanding ecosystem actors
In order to identify the problems and needs in the current podcast platform, I conducted 6 in-depth interviews with 3 types of podcast ecosystem actors, including podcasters, listeners, and sponsors. I also visualized the exchanged values between each ecosystem actor to better understand their motivation and needs.
Ecosystem mapping
User insights
From the collected insights, I then synthesized and identified 3 primary problems of the current podcast application, namely, indirect interaction, inefficient discovery, and insufficient references.
1. Indirect interaction 😵
Podcasters and listeners have to switch between platforms to interact with each other, which decreases the motivation of interaction and interrupts the flow of experience.
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2. Inefficient discovery 😪
The current logic of content discovery is prioritizing shows over episodes. However, the user study shows that listeners might not find every episode provided by the show interesting. Moreover, finding new and satisfying content requires listeners to spend time going back and forth between many show pages. A quantitative study also shows that time does matter to listeners (19% of listeners increase the speed when listening to an episode).
Podcast show page
Episode page
Discover page
3. Insufficient references 🤔
There is not a simple reference that helps listeners decide which episode has more value to them. All listeners have is the text-heavy note. And they can easily be overwhelmed during the episode discovery process.
Text-heavy references
Design Strategy
Design a podcast application that aims for increasing user loyalty.
This will be achieved through these 3 goals:
1. Direct interaction
Facilitate user engagement within the application.
2. Lean content discovery
Shorten the discovery process and match the right episode to the right listener.
3. Meaningful references
Provide meaningful references for listeners to expect the content before playing an episode.
Prototyping
Flowchart of podcast playing
In this flowchart, the fastest path to playing a podcast is through the episode (4 pink lines), compared to through podcast show or categories (gray lines). Therefore, instead of going through the podcast show page and categories page, directly recommending the episode to listeners can create the shortest user flow for a better user experience.
Lo-fi prototype
In order to quickly test and modify the design concept, I created a lo-fi prototype that visualizes my solution proposals.
A glance at the lo-fi prototype
Key wireframe - Discovery page arrangement
Different from the current logic of emphasizing shows over episodes, I took a reverse logic, which is promoting episodes first on the discovery page. By doing so, contents have a higher chance to be accurately matched with the right listeners in a short time.
Episode area
Featured show area
Podcast show area
Collection area
Category area
Flow 1 - Discover and play episodes
Besides the discover page arrangement, the discovery process is also redesigned to amplify the impact of lean content discovery. The idea is to shorten the discovery process meanwhile providing meaningful references such as keywords and clap numbers. If listeners like the suggested episodes, the application will guide them to explore the podcast show that offers similar content.
Flow 2 - Discover contents through friend connection
Promoting episodes through friend connection cannot only utilize the friends' emotional relation as an endorser but creates a sense of community in the podcast platform.
Flow 3 - Interact within the application
By swiping on the "podcast player" screen, listeners can have a quick glance at the reaction to the episode. They can also give feedback and share thoughts with podcasters and other listeners without visiting other social media.
Result
Due to the limited resources, I didn't test the prototype and iterate the design with podcast application users. Instead, I wrapped up this project by demonstrating the key interaction of the design solutions.
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Discover page arrangement
Redistribute the order of topics on the discover page. Prioritize episodes rather than podcast shows.
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Shorten the discovery process
Through the logic of episode first and keyword references, listeners are more likely to discover the podcast shows they love, which leads to podcast subscriptions. This will create a higher exposure rate for the small podcasters.
Rebuild the discovery process
Interact with podcasters & listeners
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Clapping function
A quick and direct interaction that shows support to the podcasters and episode popularity/credibility to the listeners.
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Comment section
Easily access the comment section by swiping left without visiting other social media.
The number of claps and comments can become new variables to measure the engagement rate.
Connecting with friends can not only create a sense of community but also utilize friends as personal endorsers to help listeners discover more content. This function will also create a lock-in mechanism for the podcast application.
Connect with friends
Learnings
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Setting a precise design scope in the Define stage is powerful. It helps me target the focal points of the design research and leaves spaces for ideation in just a few words.
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Clarification of business goals makes design decisions more meaningful in a UX/UI project. Having a clear business goal in the beginning stage of a project allows user research and its outcomes to become more relevant and efficient.
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Good component management in Sketch will increase the productivity of UI prototyping. Instead of jumping into user interface design, symbolizing the UI system including the selection of text sizes, fonts, and colors can shorten the development process with consistent design quality.