PROBLEM STATEMENT
Aspiring and early professional podcasters struggle with navigating career paths and building networks on their own. Traditional conferences, while important for networking, are too infrequent and costly, preventing the formation of sustained connections essential for skill development and job opportunities. Additionally, the impromptu nature of these events discourages participation from individuals with social anxiety, further limiting their networking potential. There is a need for a solution that provides continuous, affordable networking opportunities and supportive environments inclusive of those with social anxiety.
POSSIBLE SOLUTION
Podcast Penpal platform solves these problems by providing a mobile app for podcasters to make professional connections, find opportunities, and share best practices. We chose a mobile app to cater to the busy schedules of podcasters, ensuring they can connect anytime, anywhere.
Using a human-centered design approach, we conducted user research, interviews, and industry analysis to guide the project. We then used evaluative user testing with podcasters to enhance product desirability and ease of use.
TARGET AUDIENCE
Early professional podcasters
THE APPROACH
Guerilla Usability tests were instrumental in identifying where users encountered difficulties when trying to complete tasks. The most significant finding was that I needed to align my design with users’ mental models. For example, when users were asked to search for someone, they typically selected the icon of a person rather than the magnifying glass. This insight enabled me to use clearer icons accompanied by text to reduce user confusion, and I incorporated this design into the wireframes.
MY ROLE
Personas and User Stories
Validation & Usability Testing
Qualitive Research
1- Secondary Research + Heuristic Analysis on podcast conference site layouts, features, and copy.
2- Analysis of written feedback from SE 2018 participants.
3- Screener survey to assess potential participants for in-depth interviews (21 responses).
4- Online and in-person interviews conducted with 7 participants.
5- |Some of the Participant Characteristics I looked for to select interviewees: Use digital platforms to access information and make decisions, active podcast conference attendees, both speakers and general attendees, ideally at least one who went to Sound Education conference in 2018.
User Insights
I conducted user and market research to gain empathy into the challenges and aspirations podcasters face and to drive design planning. In this phase I wanted to understand the relationship podcast listeners, makers, and producers of all stripes have with podcasts and their experience with conferences - how they find out about them, why they go, what they like and dislike about them, and what keeps them involved. Conferences provide nexuses for industry professionals to come together to network, share best practices, and learn about the latest and greatest offerings.
What’s Sound Education (SE)
Sound Education is an educational audio conference preparing for its second annual meeting. For this second year SE wants to improve their digital offerings for users and attendees to make the experience more user friendly, useful, and lasting.
This Project began as a conference website redesign, but user research took me in some unexpected directions. Ultimately I would pivot to creating a new mobile app that complements the best of what conferences offer - networking, professionalization - by helping users make lasting connections, share resources and find paths to professionalization.
STORIES
User Personas and Insights
From our research, we developed three primary personas:
Aspiring April: A newcomer seeking guidance and mentorship.
Mastering Max: An early-career broadcaster looking for networking opportunities.
Second Career Sheryl: An experienced professional exploring podcasting as a new career path.
These personas helped us focus on specific user needs and tailor the app’s features accordingly.
THE VISION
Meet Podcast Penpal.
This app offers podcasters and audio makers a personalized and flexible way to build community, demystify the professionalization process through mentorship and resource sharing, and simplify safe interaction through chat.
Podcast Penpal doesn’t replace conferences. It extends what works so well about them - networking, opportunity finding, and resource sharing - into users’ everyday lives.
RESULTS
User testing revealed several promising future directions for Podcast Penpal. A standout idea is the inclusion of a rating system for community members, which would help build trust. Another potential direction is to analyze user interactions during registration to determine which categories are frequently used, which ones are not, and what users feel is missing (especially when they choose the "Other, please specify" option).
CONCLUSION
This has been an incredibly challenging yet enjoyable design project. What began as a conference website update project evolved into a more personal and enduring product that not only supports conferences but also mitigates some of the challenges associated with annual events and users with social anxiety.
Throughout this project, I learned to trust my users and interviewees, as they are the true experts. It was both empowering and humbling to learn from real people about their goals and the challenges they face. Active listening played a crucial role, leading to significant changes in my approach. Ultimately, my goal is not to design for myself but to improve people's lives in ways that are meaningful to them.
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