Triple R radio
Triple R Radio had to adapt to many technologies along the past 40 years. Today, bringing the radio to a digital field could be laborious.
We redesigned the Triple R radio App for a community and enhance the users listening experience from past to online shows.
User experience – Competitor analysis – User interview – Affinity map – Persona – Lean methodology – Mobile app – User interface design – Wireframe – Prototype – Illustrator – Audio & Video Recording – InVision
General Assembly
2018
My role
This project started with a passion for music and a desire to collaborate with another UX Designer, Daniele Milazzo, while studying at General Assembly, Melbourne.
We had 2 weeks to deliver our solution.
We followed a lean process, from user research to wireframing, concept to prototyping and user testing. We worked hand in hand. We presented our App in a high fidelity prototype.
Our MVP includes high expected features for listeners and radio hosts.
Context
INFLUENTIAL COMMUNITY RADIO
Triple R Radio has been Melbourne’s most iconic community radio for 40 years. With 440,000 weekly listeners, 14,000 subscribers and 60 diverse programs from music shows to specialist talk programs, Triple R is Australia’s most influential listeners founded radio.
In December 2017, Triple R has launched its first Radio app for IOS and give their audience the opportunity to listen to the radio from anywhere at any time. But poor features and incoherent interactions curb the user experience and compromise a successful digital turn, as well as cut the image of a leader.
During our research, we found that neither hosts, volunteers nor subscribers were involved in the design process.
Challenge
FROM ANALOG TO DIGITAL
Today, the music online App market has exploded as people are looking to listen to music and radio while using public transports, hanging out in parks, doing sports…. So, a strong online digital presence is a must-have to be visible, grow and attract new listeners. We had to understand what are the needs of community radio listeners funded and who is part of their community to design an online solution to meet users expectations.
How might we implement for Triple R radio a strong digital presence with a community at its core?
Solution
STRENGTHEN The RADIO AS A LEADER
Our App will give listeners online access to past and online shows at any time from anywhere. As the community is at the core of the radio, we enhance the interactions within the community by designing a solution where the community is visible and engaging: the listeners interact with live hosts and become a member easily.
- Improve the listening experience
- Enhance the interaction within the community
- Attract new subscribers
Design process
Research
COMPETITORS ANALYSIS
We looked at great examples such as music players, radio players, and community-engaged App.
Who are the competitors we selected and why?
- PBS – Melbourne well-known community radio
- KEXP – radio app with great interactions design and content
- Konbini – radio app engaging with the community
- Spotify — Streaming Music Service
- WFMU — Oldest Community Radio in the USA
- Triple J— On-Demand function and interaction design
- Waze — Community based App
- 24hrs of Happy — Timeline and community engagement
- Instagram — Interaction with a community
- Medium — Interaction with a community and content
What were the key features?
- Players and songs names
- Favourite, like and share options
- Donation button
Users Interviews
Who are Triple R listeners?
- Subscribers, volunteers, hosts and music listeners
- Women & men from 12 to 99 years old
- Diversity
“The Triple R audience is diverse, highly engaged and loyal![…] They have a higher propensity to consume lifestyle products such as travel, entertainment, audiovisual equipment, computer accessories and software…”
We have targeted our audience from 25 to 55 years old who the majority is tech-savvy. With 48%, the listeners from 25 to 39 represent Triple R main audience. While 19% of the listeners from 40 to 55 are the less represented. We chose this panel of users to understand their day to day challenges and pain points.
Our questions were generated to target these specific users. We interviewed five people in total: two were Triple R subscribers, one was Triple R volunteer, one was Triple R radio host and one was Spotify user.
Affinity Map
We mapped out all our information into an Affinity Map. We organized our findings to get a better understanding of the features users are expecting and the Triple R community.
What were the key findings from the users we interviewed?
- On-Demand is really popular
- Users don’t like to miss their favorite shows
- There’s a real love for Triple R Radio: it’s a family
- Streaming consumes lots of data
- Users learn from the radio
Personas
Creating two personas helped us understand our users’ needs, experiences, behaviors, and goals. We referred to Kylie and Karl in the next steps of our process as a guide, to ensure we were building good user experience for our personas.
What were our personas goals?
- Listen to previous shows
- Get information about shows and playlists
- Easy way to call Triple R when they want to win concerts tickets
- Set up alerts for the programs they would like to listen to
Impact Matrix
In the time we had, we needed to prioritize what could be achievable in low effort with a high impact for the users.
What features did we prioritize?
- Live Player
- On-Demand functionality
- Subscribe button
- Interaction with hosts
- Playlists of the shows
Ideation
We spent one day sketching the app, prioritizing features based on our impact matrix.
We wanted to deliver a simple and easy solution to switch between the live player and On-Demand player. We had two concepts in mind we worked on:
- Idea of a timeline for users to switch between Live (present show) and On-Demand (past shows)
- Concept of an “open box” for navigation with the player in the center
Next stage was to design the frames in Illustrator.
A paper prototype was not practical, we moved to a digital prototype instead, because we wanted to test the interactions as soon as possible and test the user in-situ.
Prototyping
#1 Prototype
- Confusion around iconography
- Confusion about the player
- Live and On-Demand logo looked like a button
- Interaction with hosts
- To Click in the middle of the live player, to interact with the host, was not intuitive
#2 Prototype
We iterated and made some changes based on users feedback
- Player functionality only for On-Demand
- Added community features: number of listeners live and like button
- Added first time user experience tutorial
#3 Prototype
Reflection
What I learnt
This project has been extremely valuable to learn to manage time, work as a team, make all the possible adjustments in a very short amount of time.
Passionate by this project, including the people we met along the process, we will continue to refine our Triple R Radio App. With further user testing, we have to test vocabulary, improve affordances and design a subscription process. In the close future, we would like to present it to the radio manager.