Podcaster App

For my 4-month UX Design Internship I was given the task to design the first podcast app that would collect all Macedonian podcasts in one place from multiple platforms.

As the only UX designer, I was responsible for conducting user research, creating an interaction strategy that helped develop the navigation and flow, designing wireframes and interactive prototypes as well as organizing content according to the needs and goals of the users.

To develop this project, I worked on a team along with two developers.

You can check out the clickable prototype here.

THE PROBLEM - Macedonian podcasts are hard to discover

There are over 70 podcasts by Macedonian creators on a wide variety of topics: business, fashion, music, books, politics, studies - you name it. However, there is no way to discover them since they are scattered on numerous platforms.

RESEARCH - What do Macedonians know about Macedonian podcasts?

Online Research

There isn’t much about this topic online, but I was convinced that there were others talking about it, so I started there.

To kick off the research, I found a post on Reddit in the Macedonian subreddit asking for Macedonian podcast recommendations - the main question being “Where do you even find these podcasts?”.

As I saw that plenty of people had podcast recommendations, I decided to create a post asking how often they listen to podcasts, what their opinion on Macedonian podcasts is, how they first got their hands on Macedonian podcasts and how easy it is for them to find the content.

After many similar responses, I decided to also speak more in depth with someone in real life.

In person interviews

To successfully understand what opinions people had about Macedonian podcasts, I set out two find these two types of people: podcast enthusiasts and people podcast newbies. This way, I would create a good experience both for newbies and for long-time podcast listeners.

I interviewed 2 people from each group. In summary, here’s what I learned:

Podcast enthusiasts

• Have a very hard time finding other good podcasts to listen to, especially in a similar topic to the ones they already know and love.

• The only way to find out a podcast is if you do follow the creators on social media.

• Switching from one to another podcast usually requires jumping from one platform to another (for example Anchor/Spotify to Google Podcasts).

Podcast newbies

• Don’t know where to even start looking for the podcasts.

• Didn’t think many Macedonian podcasts exist at all.

• Are quite curious to dive deeper into Macedonian podcasts.

USER PERSONAS

Based on the conversations I had, I created a user persona for each group.

USER JOURNEY MAP

Intending to make it as simple as possible, I mapped out the ideal journey a user would take to either find their favorite podcast, listen to it, save it or to discover new podcasts.

DESIGNING THE APP

To kick off the design process, I created some sketches to visualize the end product. Although not every currently existing page was in the initial sketching, here are the ones that I started off with.

Soon after, due to time constraints I had to get to designing the high fidelity wireframes.

You can check out the clickable prototype here.

At this point, the only thing left was creating a style guide, designing the logo and the components. Once these three were done, I easily and efficiently put the entire design together.

RESULTS & LEARNINGS

Although the app is currently in development I sucessfully tested the prototype I created on 5 people to find out how they navigated through it. New podcast listeners had an easy time discovering podcasts on a particular topic, and podcast enthusiasts could, without an issue find their favorite podcasts, save them, and listen to them regularly.

If I were to re-do this project, this time, I would create a feature that would enable the users to also have a listed view of a particular creator’s podcasts.

Perhaps the most valuable outcome from this project and the internship was learning to collaborate with multiple roles, lead discussions about potential solutions, ask lots of questions and listen carefully.

Check out the clickable prototype here.