PODCAST FAN MOBILE APP (UX Audit)
Crime Junkie Fan Club App
COMPANY
Crime Junkie
timeline
3 months
Project description
The goal of the Crime Junkie fan app was to help listeners efficiently discover, organize, and engage with episodes while fostering community and personalized curation.
Background
As part of the final semester of my Master program, I explored the end to end design process, thinking and deliverables of an app of my choice - Crime Junkie, built by the Digital Product Design & Development team at Studio Science. the goal was to create a unique and engaging community experience, curate podcast content effectively, and provide exclusive features and announcements within a dedicated Crime Junkie app.
Process
This category explores a restrospective step-by-step approach taken during the project, including research, planning, design, development, testing, and optimization phases.
What is Crime Junkie?
Crime Junkie is a true crime podcast hosted by Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat. It covers various true crime cases, providing in-depth information and analysis on unsolved mysteries, missing persons, and murders. With a growing fan base it was important to empower fans to have an elevated listening experience and contribute to the content creation process.
Hypothesis
Understand an already built application on the information architecture level and design system, goals and how the visual elements fit into the overall architecture.
Research & Analysis
My selection of Crime Junkie was influenced by my keen interest in grasping podcast applications comprehensively, its visually appealing interface, and because I was acquainted with a designer who contributed to its visuals, it facilitated me in delving deeper into the design's narrative and its underlying intentions.
Competitive Analysis & Information Architecture:
Priori to getting into my initial audit of the application, I conducted a competitive analysis across three categories: Crime Podcast Applications, General Podcast Applications, and Music Streaming Applications. This analysis helped us identify industry trends, best practices, and areas where we could differentiate the Crime Junkie app.
Similar Crime Podcast Applications
General Podcast Applications
Music Streaming Applications
True Crime: This popular crime podcast app offers a lively community forum where listeners can discuss episodes and share their own true crime stories. The app also provides episode transcripts, enhancing accessibility.
Real Life Real Crime focuses on immersive storytelling, featuring detailed episode descriptions and an option to view crime scene photos. It emphasizes deep dives into cases, catering to enthusiasts seeking comprehensive content.
Key Takeaways:
Community engagement features such as forums and discussions are valuable for crime podcast enthusiasts.
Detailed episode descriptions and additional media content contribute to a more engaging experience.
2. General Podcast Applications:
Apple Podcasts: Apple Podcasts provides a vast library of podcasts, but its social features are limited. User reviews and ratings help with content discovery to some extent.
Key Takeaways:
Personalization and content recommendations are strong points in general podcast applications.
Social and community features are often less prominent or lacking.
3. Music Streaming Applications:
Spotify: As mentioned earlier, Spotify offers both music and podcast content. It excels in music discovery through playlists and algorithms but does not provide deep podcast community engagement features.Spotify also offers podcast integration. It excels in personalized playlists and algorithm-driven recommendations. However, podcast-specific features are somewhat limited compared to dedicated podcast apps.
Apple Music: While primarily a music streaming platform, Apple Music has started to integrate podcasts. It focuses on seamless content transition between music and podcasts.
Key Takeaways:
Music streaming apps prioritize seamless integration between music and podcasts.
Podcast-specific community and engagement features are typically limited.
Apple Podcasts: Apple Podcasts provides a vast library of podcasts, but its social features are limited. User reviews and ratings help with content discovery to some extent.
Key Takeaways:
Personalization and content recommendations are strong points in general podcast applications.
Social and community features are often less prominent or lacking.
3. Music Streaming Applications:
Spotify: As mentioned earlier, Spotify offers both music and podcast content. It excels in music discovery through playlists and algorithms but does not provide deep podcast community engagement features.Spotify also offers podcast integration. It excels in personalized playlists and algorithm-driven recommendations. However, podcast-specific features are somewhat limited compared to dedicated podcast apps.
Apple Music: While primarily a music streaming platform, Apple Music has started to integrate podcasts. It focuses on seamless content transition between music and podcasts.
Key Takeaways:
Music streaming apps prioritize seamless integration between music and podcasts.
Podcast-specific community and engagement features are typically limited.
Insights
Community Engagement: Crime podcast apps like My Favorite Murder and Casefile excel in fostering community engagement through forums and discussions. This indicates a strong desire among listeners to interact and discuss content.
Content Discovery: General podcast apps like Spotify emphasize personalization and algorithm-driven content recommendations. This approach helps users discover new podcasts and episodes tailored to their interests.
Multimedia and Deep Dives: Some crime podcast apps, like Casefile, provide additional multimedia content such as crime scene photos and detailed episode descriptions, catering to users who want in-depth information.
Seamless Integration: Music streaming apps like Spotify and Apple Music focus on creating a seamless transition between music and podcasts, recognizing that many users enjoy both forms of audio content.
Goals
Defining User Goals into tasks
Information Architecture
App flow
The goals and translation into user actions helped me draft the information architecture to compare with the existing application.
Understanding Design System
The existing logo was designed by freelance designers and the team retained it as it had connected with the fans. The design system was designed around the theme and palette extracted from the logo.
Final Design Review
UX & Visual Audit Conclusion
Visual Audit Conclusion
The Crime Junkie application maintains a visually engaging and thematically appropriate design that aligns with its true crime content. The dark, moody color palette enhances the immersive experience, while typography choices effectively balance readability and style. However, there are opportunities for improvement in terms of accessibility across different sections of the app. Refining these elements will enhance brand cohesion and improve user perception. Ensuring accessibility through better color contrast and scalable fonts will further optimize the visual experience for a broader audience.
UX Audit Conclusion
The app offers a seamless and engaging user experience, effectively delivering true crime content to its audience. Navigation is generally intuitive, with well-structured categories and clear labeling. However, areas for enhancement include refining the streamlining content discovery through personalization, and optimizing playback controls for ease of use. Users would benefit from enhanced search functionality, personalized recommendations, and improved offline listening options. Addressing these UX concerns will lead to a more intuitive and engaging experience, ensuring long-term user retention and satisfaction.
Final Recommendations
To elevate both the visual and user experience aspects of the Crime Junkie application, I recommend:
Improving accessibility through contrast adjustments and responsive typography.
Enhancing search and discovery features for better content accessibility.
Refining the user journey by increasing personalization.
By addressing these refinements, the Crime Junkie application can provide a more polished, user-friendly, and immersive experience for true crime enthusiasts.