Enhancing the Times Radio App: Designing to Increase Retention

Times Radio is a British digital station that broadcasts a variety of talk shows designed to entertain and inform. In addition to live programming, they offer a catalogue of podcasts available through the Times Radio App, which generate revenue through advertisements. While the app boasts excellent content, its usability and lack of features to encourage loyalty have led to challenges with user retention. I took on this project to enhance the user experience and increase app loyalty.

My Role
UX UI Design lead

Core Activities
Business Review and Lean UX Canvas
Design Review
Moderated User Research
Low-Fidelity Wireframing
High-Fidelity Wireframing
Prototyping

Timeline
3 Weeks

Sneak peak at the changes

Background

The Radio Times app made finding a specific podcast a tedious task. Users had to endlessly scroll through tiles to locate their desired content. After examining app reviews, it was clear that many others found the app clunky and user-unfriendly as a result driving users away.

When my favourite podcast moved from BBC Sounds to Times Radio, I eagerly downloaded the app to keep listening. However, frustration set in quickly. The interface was clunky, and basic features were missing. Determined to improve it, I delved into user feedback and found that others shared my frustrations. With this knowledge, I set out to make the necessary improvements to the app.

The challenge

Business Review

By conducting a Lean UX Canvas, I was able to identify the best approach to solving the business issues.


What works

  • Clean design

  • Thumbnails give clear indication of 
podcast without too many words

  • Schedule is easy to navigate

What doesn’t work

  • 1. No easy podcast search.

  • 2. Lengthy user journey to find favourite podcasts.

  • 3. No ability to subscribe, continue listening options limited.

  • 4. Too much copy, requiring users to scroll excessively.

  • 5. No year given in podcast date.

  • No download option.

Design Review

I conducted moderated user research with five participants to assess their experience in navigating to specific podcasts. Through a series of questions, I sought to identify any issues they encountered and gather suggestions for improvement to see if my hypothesis was correct.

Testing Script
Scenario: 
You're a busy person juggling work and family life, and you enjoy listening to podcasts on your commute. Your favorite podcast is now available on Times Radio, and you like to catch up with it daily.

Please open the Times Radio App and navigate to the Planet Hope podcast to play the latest episode.

Now, close the app and then reopen it to find and play the second most recent episode of Planet Hope.

Questions: During the questions, I may ask you to give me a score from 1 to 10, with 1 being terrible and 10 being amazing.

  1. Did you manage to find the podcast you were looking for?

  2. Did you encounter any problems?

  3. How easy was it to navigate to the podcast section of the app, please give a sore of 1-10?

  4. Did you encounter any problems?

  5. Upon returning to the Times Radio app, how was the journey to find the second most recent episode of Planet Hope? Please rate on a scale of 1-10.

  6. Did you encounter any problems?

User Research

As Spotify was mentioned a number of times with those who completed the survey I decided to conduct a design review to understand how they create a more streamlined and user-friendly experience. Highlighted below are the aspects I felt could help to improve user experience on the Times Radio app.

Design Review of Spotify

User testing revealed that the app needed to match the user-friendliness of its competitors to maintain retention. Key improvements included:

  • Subscribe to podcast option with these shown upfront

  • Continue Listening feature up front

  • Ability to search for titles and subjects/genres

  • Reduction of body copy

Solutions

Low-fidelity Wireframes

Home Screen - new user

Home Screen - returning user

Search

Search - typing

Selected Podcast

Playing

High-fidelity Wireframes

Before - Podcast page

After - Podcast page, new user

After - Podcast page, returning user

Before - Selected podcast

Before - Selected podcast, scrolled

After - Selected podcast

After - Search

After - Search, when typing

Interactive Prototype

What I learnt from this project

I learnt how useful it is to use a lean canvas to work out the quickest and cheapest route to solving the business problem. I also realised how helpful it is to do user testing, resulting in me designing solutions based on user feed back rather than my assumptions.