UX/UI Design & Research
Team: 1 ( just me )
Timeframe: 2 weeks
Tools: Figma, Zoom, Pen & paper
Role: Product designer, researcher
Solution: Click here
KQUA is a Roseburg, Oregon community radio station. They provide educational material focused on conservation and restoration of the Umpqua basin as a public service, along with creating and reinforcing community in their local area. They provide hourly radio programming (music/talk/news), locally-focused podcasts, and local news articles. The primary touch-point with their community is their website.
Committed to exploring new avenues of outreach to their community, KQUA brought me in to design a live radio app. Having no current app, their requirements were few:
1. Access to their broadcast
2. Access to their podcasts
3. Access to their local news articles
Upon researching the domain of public radio apps, I quickly discovered a few UI patterns that seemed consistent across most apps. The basic nature of these patterns seemed to lend themselves to maximizing usability. Considering the age demographic of public radio listeners is broad, the client and I agreed that usability over aesthetic was most important.
Having met with the client multiple times to discuss my research and design direction, and due to having a challenging timeline I created the following principles to help guide me through the design phase:
1. Design an interface that is recognizable in how its navigated
2. Create Predictable responses to user interaction
3. Create a Lean Design, offering only what is absolutely necessary
Having discussed the ideal usage of KQUA’s app, I created artifacts to help define the structure and flow of the app.
Utilizing ideation methods like 6-8-5 sketching, I began the process of crafting divergent design concepts to answer the needs of the KQUA team and their listeners. This process can seem messy and unorganized as its purpose is to generate and exhaust as many potential solutions as possible.
The great majority of the public radio apps use a specific UI to visualize the radio program schedule and your current location within it. I felt there was room for optimization in the way this information was being presented so I created a design iteration. A/B testing results showed an overwhelming preference for the new design.
Once the prototype was completed it was shared with the KQUA stakeholders. Not only did they love the simplicity of the app but also the new way their schedule would be visualized. Through the implementation of this design, the KQUA community will have easier access to the programming and information that they’ve grown to love.
