UX Design / Product / Interaction Design
Podcast Design
Thoughts started as a personal project completed during the winter 2019 semester. I had developed podcast listening habits together with a group of friends, enjoying the concept for curation, audio and reading experience. The design and research set out further to explore the question: How might we create audio listening experience that allow user to connect more deeply with the content itself?
View Project [︎︎︎]
Podcast Design
Thoughts started as a personal project completed during the winter 2019 semester. I had developed podcast listening habits together with a group of friends, enjoying the concept for curation, audio and reading experience. The design and research set out further to explore the question: How might we create audio listening experience that allow user to connect more deeply with the content itself?
View Project [︎︎︎]
Podcast Listening Experience and Unmet Needs
“ I like to listen to podcasts on the way to school or while commuting. It's a better or more efficient way to consume interesting content while using regular travel time.”
“l love listening to podcast when I am doing house works, it allows me to multi tasking while still listening to my favorite content .”
“I can't say the exact number of channel I follow, because there are so many. I look for threads in the content, and gradually I find a lot of interesting people, but.... There are too many of them.” As I start to understand how listener usually engage with podcast, I interviewed five podcast listeners, each at different points in their habit. Some had been tuning in for years, while others were relatively new to the podcast. Despite their diverse listening timelines, they shared intriguing similarities in how they connected with podcasts, yet each brought a unique perspective to their relationship with audio content.
Through these dialogues, I uncovered some of the key insights that transcended their varied podcast listening experiences and visions, listeners enjoy:
- The Bond with the Host: Listeners cherished a “friendship-like” connection they felt with podcast hosts, looking forward to this virtual companionship on a weekly basis.
- The Joy of Discovery: They reveled in uncovering new content and absorbing fresh ideas, indicating a thirst for continuous learning and exploration.
Opportunity for Design
- Enhanced Contextual Understanding: Listeners expressed a wish for more background or contextual information accompanying episodes, to enrich their understanding and engagement.
- Easier Content Review: The ability to revisit and review previously enjoyed content was another area they hoped to see improved, highlighting the importance of reflection and recall in their listening experience.
- Tailored Recommendations: A desire for personalized suggestions on shows and episodes was evident, reflecting a need for a more curated listening journey.
- Simplified Unsubscription: The process of unsubscribing from podcasts felt cumbersome, suggesting a need for a more streamlined approach.
Brainstorm on Key functions
It was important and interesting to generate ideas and learn about all the similar market products. This process got me thinking about why products are designed the way they are, in terms of some of the features themselves and the mechanics of how they work. An example, Apple podcast keyword search mechanism looks at metadata (name, channel name, episode title), popularity, user behavior (listening engagement, followers, completion rate), etc. Spotify, for their part, provides their keyword search results from individual listening history, current popularity and alltime popularity.
I know there's a lot more that's not apparent from their visual appearance, but I'm also interested in following the product and its organization of structure and functionality to better understand the actual functional needs they address and the business interests they may be juggling at the same time.
User Flow and System Diagram
1. General Login
Reference: Common Login Pattern
2. User search for podcast using keywords and subscribe
I looked into some helpful practice from application process keyword search. And things usually gets complicated and we have senarios for search results prioritization such as ads and organic search rankings have different objectives and algorithms. Essentially, the input need go through indexing, storeaging, parameter matching etc.
3. User curate podcast related content while listening to them
Vision
Useful: Users should be able to enjoy listening to podcast.
Connection: Users are able to connect to the content on a personal scale
Transparent: Users have better knowledge to the listening content their subscriptions choices and pattern
Useful: Users should be able to enjoy listening to podcast.
Connection: Users are able to connect to the content on a personal scale
Transparent: Users have better knowledge to the listening content their subscriptions choices and pattern
User Feedback
1. Improve the audio content bookmarkTo learn more about how other products handled similar issues, I take some time analyzed Apple, Google, Podcast, Audible. Here are what I found:
2. Organize Over all User Flows
After analyzing and orginazing all the interivew and competitive analysis information, the detailed user stories were formulated. The following are the main requirements of the app in the user stories:
3. Visual Brand Design
Based on the user stories, I first made the flowchart and then the wireframes to communicate the flow of the app. The client was involved in this stage several times to reach an agreement on the key features.
Develope Visual Language![]()
![]()
![]()
Credits
Project Scope
Early Concept
User Flow
Branding
Design Iteration
Early Concept
User Flow
Branding
Design Iteration
Time
4 Months
Instructor
Tawanna Dillarhunt
4 Months
Instructor
Tawanna Dillarhunt
My Role
User Interview
Competitive Analysis
Interaction Design
Branding
UI Design
User Testing
User Interview
Competitive Analysis
Interaction Design
Branding
UI Design
User Testing