Podblogger
- Ear to the world -
OVERVIEW
Design a new social media service which is focused on people sharing spoken word audio recordings (podcasts).
This project was a design assignment for the Interaction Design fundamentals course at UNSW. My task was to develop an overarching design concept for Podblogger, a podcast sharing app, and then delve deeper into the design of two specific components of the app. For this project I achieved a Distinction Grade.
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Note: The brief only required low-fidelity designs
DURATION
TEAM
5 weeks
Just me!
ROLE
TOOLS
UX design
Prototyping
Research
Figma
Adobe Photoshop
Final Cut Pro
INITIAL RESEARCH
Understanding podcast listener behaviour
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65% of podcast consumers are likely to listen on a mobile device
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25% listen on computers
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10% on smart speakers.
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As key insight on podcast listening behaviour was that 65% of podcast consumers listen on their mobile devices whilst the rest either use computer or smart speakers. As I was initially thinking of creating a desktop app, this made me pivot to designing for mobile instead as that is where the majority of the users are based.
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40% of podcast listeners search the in-app library
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18.3% directly ask people they know
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The rest search online
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Only 40% of podcast listeners search within their podcasting app libraries, whilst the greater majority ask people they know or search online in forums. It signified to me that there was a problem with current discoverability features which I noted down to address within my design.
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Understanding social media
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This brief envisions a new social media service to be created, to which I studied the key aspects of what makes a great social media service. The components were:
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‘Promoting the creation and sharing of content’
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‘connecting like-minded individuals’
These two things were my focus points as I designed the concept - I always asked myself whether the feature I included was supporting these two ideas.
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Gathering real user insights
I also conducted user interviews with two different users, one who listens to lots of podcasts and one who doesn’t. Mostly his motivations is to stay up to date and learn new things and his pain points are that he finds that existing podcast apps lack the social aspects of other social services. Reflective of the statistics I found in my initial research, he also turns to online forums to find podcasts -- again reaffirming the importance of having a discoverability function incorporated into my application as well as a social feature.
Sample questions and answers from the interview
INFORMATION SYNTHESIS
I gathered a lot of information and insights from the initial research stage, so the next step was to synthesis and make it understandable.
Based on my research, I identified two key users that would sit within Podblogger's target market. Each persona having their very own unique set of pain points and wants. As I had to delve into two specific features of the app for the assignment I wanted to make sure I tailor each feature to address each persona.
IDEATION
To come up with ideas for functionality, I did a IDEO Mash up activity where you combine concepts from two different categories to make new unique ideas.
My focus statement was 'how might I create a social media based audio app'. My first category was the current issues with existing podcasting apps, where the insights came from my user interview and secondary research. My second category was the best elements of a social media app, as I am trying to create a social media service. I used colour to link the similar ideas together for example hard to find like-minded people who listen’ with ‘facebook groups’ to create the concept of ‘podcast groups’. On the right I have my 4 results of features to include in my app.
Two key
features
I also used a mind-map to visually link together all the potential features of Podblogger with a focus on socialising and discovery as decided from my Mash-up activity.
APP CONCEPT: Podblogger
The two main focuses are to meet fellow podcast listeners and share your thoughts with them as well as to empower users to discover more. This matches the two key aspects of social media which is to share and connect.
Throughout the app design, I used the term 'room' to signify the place where people coming together to learn from one another e.g. A classroom.
PROTOTYPING & TESTING
In this stage I made sure to test every prototype version to ensure I was going in the right direction. In total I had 3 testing rounds with at least 2 versions of each of the two features I have to spotlight.
I used sketches and clickable wireframes when prototyping to give a visual product for test users to interact with.
During my testing sessions, I really encouraged the testers to use the thinking out loud method, as it makes user observation much easier to follow, for example when they pause because they are confused. I also noted questions they would ask during the process to guide my improvements. See my test template below.
Iteration 1 test results for user flow: Use discovery function to add podcast to a playlist
Iteration 2 test results for user flow: Use discovery function to add podcast to a playlist
Project outcome
Below I included the final iterations for the two key user stories and also the user journey which I used to communicate how these specific features can help improve the lives of my target audience.
User story 1:
As a Podblogger user, I want to be able to search for a relevant room and join the room to connect with like-minded individuals.
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This feature below aims to facilitate the real world act of going in and out of rooms based on interests as you would at a convention or meet up.
User story 2:
As a user of Podblogger I want to discover podcasts and add to them to playlists seamlessly, so that I don't have to spend a long time deciding what I want.
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This feature below was largely inspired by the discoverability functions found on dating apps leveraging gestures for enhanced user control and efficiency.
TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
LESSONS LEARNED
1. Increase the fidelity of your designs only as your confidence grows
I used to believe that as soon as you finish a round of low-fidelity that you would move instantly to high-fidelity regardless of your results. This is inherently not true because fidelity should grow with the confidence you feel in your designs in solving the user problem. This became evident in my doing multiple rounds of low-fidelity which saved me lots of time in the long-run.
2. Accessibility over visual appeal
When designing a solution I used to be always so concerned with the visual appearance of an app that it would hinder the usability and accessibility. With this assignment not requesting extremely polished high fidelity designs I was able to really focus on the process rather than appearance. Even when picking colours for my end designs I was tossing up between an accessible orange colour vs a colour I personally liked. I ended up picking accessibility because that is a key principle I want to design by.
3. Discovery is the make or break of a project
The brief for this project was really vague and allowed a lot of room for creativity. But with that it also meant that from the start I had no idea what the problem was that I should be solving for and had to figure it out myself. Then there is the pressure of finding the right problem to solve, which directly impacts the solution to solve. It made me realise that the initial act of finding the problem was overall much harder than coming up with the solution.