Problem

Most products that cater to the spoken-word content audience remain undifferentiated from other audio experiences such as music. The most podcast and audiobook experiences are still quite basic with most advanced functionalities stopping at sleep timers and bookmark functions. The challenge is to create a listening experience for spoken-word content that is more interactive which creates a business opportunity to increase screen time and usage within a product ecosystem.

Exploration

Spoken-word media such as audiobooks and podcasts are continuing to experience a boom in popularity over the last few years. “41 percent of the U.S. population reported having listened to a podcast in the past month,” which is a figure that is “more than three times the share recorded a decade earlier”(Source). The growth isn’t expected to slow down anytime soon as projections estimate that the number of podcast listeners in the US is expected to exceed “160 million listeners [by] 2023”(Source). Similarly, audiobooks have also experienced great growth in works published over the past decade with an increase from 6,000 audiobooks to 71,000 in 2020 (Source). The market's growth is also expected to grow even further with projections showing that the global revenue for audiobooks will reach USD 15 billion in 2027 (Source). 

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The majority of podcast and audiobook consumption is done by young, educated millennials and Generation Z. To make empathizing with this demographic easier, I created a persona of a member of the primary demographic that would be best served by the possible product. 

Ideation

With this persona in mind, I generated a list of possible avenues for solutions that would result in a more engaging and interactive user experience for spoken-word content that primarily caters to that demographic but would also be accessible to older demographics. I then took these possible solutions and placed them in an Impact vs Effort Prioritization Matrix to see the feasibility of implementing these solutions. This really allowed me to prioritize and plan out and visualize the solution set for this challenge.

To further visualize these possible solutions I sketched a few storyboards depicting scenarios where these solutions could be implemented.

Using the results of the prioritization matrix I was able to pinpoint the features that I believed would be the product's competitive advantage, would be the ability to save audio clips of spoken-word content, add notes to them, and the ability to share and publish these notes as well. Other features to round out the product would be varying listening modes that would encourage different levels of interactivity and voice-activated features. 

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I then created a user flow diagram that would help map out and organize these functions to a sensible and intuitive user flow. 

With a structural backbone set, I moved on to creating a mood board to help set the design aesthetic and feel of the product. Since I was looking to gear towards young and educated millennials and Generation Z I decided to aim for a retro and analog-inspired experience. 

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With an overall aesthetic set, I iterated on a design of a logo to create a central identity to the product. I went with the name Ech.Nōt as a combination of echo and note, which I believe would be the primary activities that users would be using in addition to the content consumption. Users would echo their favorite content by highlighting them for their followers and make note of them by adding other information and insight to select echoes. 

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From there I created a style guide to create a uniform design language throughout the experience.

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I then created lower fidelity wireframes inspired by my storyboard sketches to organize the layout of information and functions on the screen.

Implementation

Utilizing the low-fidelity prototypes in conjunction with the style guide and moodboard I created a high-fidelity interactable prototype that emulated the primary functions of the product. With the help of the user flow map, I was able to prioritize which screens needed to be prototyped and how one screen flowed to the next.

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I then conducted user tests with the prospective targeted demographic with this current prototype. From these tests, I was able to garner information and feedback on how to make the product more intuitive and easy to use. This step was crucial as it allowed me to gauge how far along the prototype is. On a scale from 1 to 10 on how usable the initial prototype was the average score was an 8 with most of the friction in the experience relating to the discoverability of content, and the differentiation of different types of content (Podcasts and Audiobooks published by content creators vs. Echoes and Ech.Nōts posted by other users). 

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With feedback in mind, I fine-tuned the prototype, making some adjustments to make the experience more intuitive and in line with the target demographic. Making note of their difficulty in differentiating 

The interactable final prototype:

Reflection

A majority of the test users found the product concept to be novel and useful especially given the fact that there isn't a product that quite serves this niche market as of March 2022. Many found the ability to instantly clip and add notes to any spoken-word content with a persistent shortcut to be a significant competitive edge that would attract a niche customer base to the product. Further improvements could be the addition of a dark/night mode for ease of use and improved social functions such as the ability to like and comment to further emphasize the social experience on Ech.Nōt. Through this case study, I was able to hone my skills in empathy and user research to guide the direction of the product to optimal usability and aesthetics. I found that using a design framework that encourages exploration then refinement allowed me to explore different avenues but ultimately refine the selected solutions to intuitive usability. Given the generally positive feedback from the user tests, I would deem my design process as a success, creating a refined prototype for potential users to get a gist of the general experience I would like for the final product. To push this project even further would require me to partner with programmers and other designers with the hopes of creating a demo product. 

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