Role: UX Research, UX Design, UI Design
Tools: Figma
Timeline: 16 weeks
The Problem
Apple was on the frontier of podcasts and have been accommodating them since their origin in 2004. Despite originating the media form, Apple’s market share now trails to 20%, behind its top competitor’s rapidly climbing 25%. If this trend continues and Apple does not improve its platform, it will become obsolete in the media field.
The goal of this project is to identify areas of the user experience that can be improved to increase usership, with a special focus on retaining iPhone users.
Preliminary Research
I approached the initial research phase of my project with the following questions:
What are areas of opportunity to improve the existing application, from the perspective of the Nielsen Norman Group’s Usability Heuristics?
How do competitor applications compare to Apple in these same categories?
Apple excels at communicating system status to users. They are also highly skilled at communicating with users in an understandable way.
System Status Viability Feedback
Matching Systems to the Real World
However, there is opportunity to improve the consistency and navigability of their design, the accessibility of their system, and the aesthetic and minimalist elements of their design.
Consistency of Design Components
Accessibility of Design
Aesthetic and Minimalist Design
After conducting a competitor comparative analysis, I found that Apple’s top competitor, Spotify, is excelling in all the areas where Apple falls short. This presents a compelling argument to focus design solutions on cleaning up consistency and accessibility, and creating a more simplified interface that allows users to more easily reach their goals.
User Research
In order to define the minimum viable product within a simplified, user friendly interface, we moved on to user research.
The Apple Podcast App has a broad user base. To choose my primary proto persona, I analyzed data and synthesized the relationship between demographics and user behavior. My primary proto persona is the user with the highest use rate, and whose needs are the most complex. This is an important group to design for because they make up the bulk of the consumer base, and if their needs are met, the other persona’s needs will be satisfied as well.
Christian Mercado
17 Years Old, High School Student
Attributes: Listens in free time for entertainment. Averages listening 7-10 hours per week. Ample browsing time, high tech literacy.
Goals: Save content, access curated content, discover trending content, access exclusive content, share content.
Pain Points: Hard to find recommendations, often forgets about library features, no incentive to discover new features.
Synthesis
Both the heuristic audit and user research pointed to the need to improve access to curated content in the application. Looking at the big picture of the field, I reflected on the following:
There are 3 million podcasts, but the average user only listens to 8 episodes a week. The ability to find quality curated content is the most important feature to users.
Apple needs to set themselves apart from the competition by creating industry leading innovations on this front.
I entered the design phase of this project with the following questions:
If curated content would improve user experience, how do we make it easy to engage with?
If users feel overwhelmed by the amount of options, how can we reduce that sensation?
If navigation is confusing, how can we make the product mirror the user’s mental map?
Design Strategy
After synthesizing all my research and the needs of my persona, it was clear that my design strategy needed to be improving browsability of the application.
Within that overall strategy, some clear areas of focus were:
Improving access to curated content
Reimagining the browse function
Improving navigation
I identified five Hero flows to focus on:
Discover Something New
Subscribe to a Channel
Use a Station
Search
Browse All Categories
Low Fidelity Prototypes
1. Discover Something New
The first opportunity I saw to elevate curated content was adding recommendation carousels. The application’s current landing screen only offers recently accessed content and shared content.
I added two recommendation carousels to the Home screen based on user listening patterns, as well as related recommendation carousels at the bottom of the show screens to encourage users to continue exploring their interests.
These carousels put new content just one click away, and save users the trouble of navigating the Discover screen to find new content.
2. Subscribe to a Channel
Next, I sought to bring attention to the underrepresented Channels feature. Channels are curated groups of shows that are accessible through subscriptions. This is a valuable feature to promote because it is profitable for the business and content creators, and also accommodates the users desire for curated content.
In efforts to educate users on the feature and encourage conversions, I created a promotion and call to action on the Home screen, as well as a tab filter for Channels vs Shows on the Discover screen.
Before the subscription is purchased, locked content is indicated by under-saturated imagery. The subscription process is low friction, facilitated by a modal dialogue prompting users to connect to their Apple account.
3. Use a Station
Another under-advertised content curation feature is Stations, which allow users to design their own channels like playlists. In order to encourage curiosity and use, I added a navigation link on the Home screen.
Once inside the Station section of the Library screen, the user can select a Station and easily add new shows from the recommendation carousel at the bottom of the Station screen. They can also browse existing shows within the station, and easily play all new episodes.
4. Search
Outside of promoting under used content curation features, I optimized some existing features. The search function is a powerful way to search known content, but it can also be used to promote discovery.
I added recent search results once the search form is engaged, and built on responsive results with a tab filter while the user is typing. I also changed the responsive search display from a drop down text box to inviting, list format content cards. The live feedback during search serves to indicate systems status, and prevents the need for error messaging.
Once the user commits the search, the results expand to encompass not just matching text, but also results with related metadata. The use of metadata in the search results allows users to search a genre and discover new content.
5. Browse All Categories
Beneath all our algorithms, filter functions, and content curation, the application is at its root a massive digital library and should be treated as such. I added a way to view a comprehensive list of categories, and view all the content available in each category. Before this redesign, the user was subject to whatever recommendation algorithms were in place.
By allowing curious user a comprehensive browse function, we are increasing their freedom to navigate and ability to discover. Content overwhelm is mitigated with filter options such as A-Z, Top Rated, and a “Load More” prompt after twenty results.
