Redesign Dasko&Mladja app
Android and iOS app, with website redesign on the horizon
In the mist of media censorship in Serbia, a popular Serbian radio duo started their own online radio. The content is developing further, as the audience gets wider and more and more shows are broadcasted on their radio. The app seaks to widen the audience, provide a better user experience and knit tighter bonds in the community of listeners.
Starting the project
The project is done on a volunteer basis, and team members are all dedicated fans and supporters of the show (or shows).
An initial set of ideas and requirements was developed by the main motor of the project - the developer of the existing Android app. The team also brainstormes on the features and possibilities.
The users
The project is in the initial phase and requirements are still being gathered. We are now in the process of interviewing users, who are recruited by shouting out for helpers live in the show and social media. Users are interviewed in an open format, and stories are elicited of their experience and interaction with the show. The main concern is that the users that we manage to recruite in this way, are already huge fans of the show, since they are invested in the content and want to volunteer their time for an interview with the designer, that the needs for the new users could be overlooked. We will attempt mitigating this bias in further stages of design and user testing - the plan is to test the wireframes on potential new users when the requirements are more defined.
User interviews are ongoing, analysis of the material gathered pending.
Designing in parallel
The team is brainstorming about their own ideas for new features and functionalities, that we, as fans, would like to see, and we are in parallell with user interviews working on making mock-ups and wireframes in order to communicate ideas, test concepts and get the crative juices going.
Main Screen
The users who download and install the app are already either fans or have got a recommendation from a fan to check out the show, so they are coming to listen. Thus the main screen opens up when the user starts the application is the live steam player, playing the show currently streaming. In case there are no shows currently streaming, the podcast list opens as the main screen.
The main controls for the playback are located on a record, and the record turns slowly when stream is played, indicating visually that the stream i on. The users of the current application have asked for an option to be able to rewind the stream slightly, in case they want to re-listen or have missed a part of the show, last sentence or similar. Fine tuning is done by turning the recored / scratching. The indicator in the bottom of the screen is showing how far behind the live stream user is currently listening. There is also a “live” button - by pressing live the user can tune back in the live stream, while record button lets the user record parts of the stream to his/her device.
Rewinding live stream
Much wanted function of rewinding the live stream is explored further. If the user rewinds rotating the gramphone record, a snackbar appears indicating how far behind the user has rewound. Or the bar in the bottom of the screen indicates the stream, and the user can rewind by swiping the bar from right to left.
Controling playback in podcast
When the user listens to podcast a finer control of the playback position is useful, and the interaction is inspired by the SoundCloud app.
The bar on the bottom of the screen shows the graphic representation of the sound, and moving it right or left triggers a zoomed in representation of the sound, where user can fine tune the playback.
Controling volume
Since the shows are predominantley talk shows, the user have asked for more advanced sound and volume controls, and the team is considering making these available directly from the playback screen, as a pop-over.
Stay tuned
The project is in progress, and since it consists of the whole team of volunteers, we don't operate with hard dates. Stay tuned for the next phase!