Podcast App
My Podcast App project for internship at COBE
Project Overview
A podcast app that specializes in Science and Technology temathics, and offers a great way to stay up to date with the latest news and developments in the Sci-Tech world. Listen to experts in particular fields discuss what is happening in their field, and present the latest advancements and exciting discoveries. Coverage will include lots of topics from general science, physics, astronomy, astrophysics, and computer science, to the latest technology topics like space technology, AI, blockchain…
Features:
Download episodes and listen to them offline.
Discover new and popular podcasts
Create your own playlists.
Control speed rate
Set sleep timer
Subscribe podcasts
Rate episodes
Add to favorites
Navigation: Footer navigation (Home, Discover, Library, Profile)
Competitor Analysis
Pocket Casts
Pocket Casts is a podcast platform that is available on Android and iOS, free of charge. There are some additional features that are locked. But for $1 per month, there is Pocket Casts+ upgrade that adds a few extra features like a web player, different themes and icons, and cloud storage. Not necessary, but nice to have. It´s not popular as Spotify or Google Podcast, but still has a lot of users, mainly from the US (30,34%) and Brazil (19,85%). Most of their social media traffic comes from Youtube (34,85%), followed by Reddit (19,33%) and Twitter (13,65%).
With 1 million total downloads on Play Store, there´s a lot of room for growth. Also, based on customer ratings, there´s room for additional improvements in user experience. Pocket Casts offers 10 themes to choose from, and that is really cool, most similar apps only have light or dark modes. Color palettes on every theme are good enough, but some of them will not find approval from everyone, depending on personal preferences. App itself is relatively simple to use, but does not provide the smoothest experience out there. There is no social part where users can comment or interact, also, reviews and ratings on the podcasts or episodes are not implemented.
When a new user gets into the app, on the main navigation there are two buttons leading to the empty sections, which at first sight seems a little bit strange. The first one is a Podcast section, which is empty until episodes are added to favorites, except a big button that will shift us to the Discover page. After a few episodes are added, it begins to have sense. The second one is Filters, which also for a new user can be strange, but, it gives a nice selection of criteria to create a smart list of episodes. The category list is located at the bottom of the Discover page, maybe it would be better to put the categories list on the top for users to have options upon landing on the Discover page.
But, because a Discover page serves as a home page, it makes sense to arrange things in that manner. The player is user friendly and offers few cool features, like customizable skip back and forward buttons, menu with adjustable speed, silence trim, sleep timer, sharing options and add to favorites, which can boost listening experience.
Pros:
Customization posibilities
Free themes
Lot of filters for podcasts and episode search
Cons:
No episode ratings
No social part, comments and reviews
Interface can be unnatural for some users
Prototype & Testing
I conducted multiple rounds of user testing to validate the direction of the app after creating the prototype. Through this process, valuable insights were gathered on the areas that were working well and those that required improvement, leading to further refinements of the app.
