Simplifying the curation of a personal podcast library and creating a seamless, frictionless social sharing experience
Roles: UX/UI Designer, UX Researcher
Timeline: 3 weeks
Toolkit: Figma, Google Survey
Podcasts are inherently social, but listeners struggle to organize, revisit, and share episodes—relying on clunky workarounds that hinder content sharing with friends
Over the past decade, podcasts have become a dominant form of media, attracting a global audience with diverse interests. Pocket Casts, known for its ease of use and customizations, is a top choice for podcast enthusiasts and consistently ranks among leading platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts. As a longtime Pocket Casts user, I often find myself discussing podcast recommendations with friends.
While podcasts are typically an individual activity, they have a strong social component, with users frequently sharing and discussing content. However, recommending podcasts can be cumbersome, as many resort to Notes apps, screenshots, or spreadsheets to keep track. This inefficiency risks missed opportunities for sharing recommendations.
In this project, I explored a social recommendation feature within Pocket Casts, which enables users to easily share and discover podcasts with friends directly in the app. This feature could attract new users, foster community engagement, and potentially be integrated into a premium tier to boost revenue. By tapping into the inherent social nature of podcasts, Pocket Casts can enhance its value and appeal through this new feature design.
The problem
Podcast listeners struggle to organize, revisit, and share favorite episodes seamlessly, and instead use various workarounds which leads to missed opportunities for sharing and conversation.
Research uncovered gaps in existing podcast platforms, while survey data showed strong demand for social features and streamlined recommendation tools to improve listening and sharing
Competitor Analysis
I analyzed three major podcast applications: Spotify, Overcast and Apple Podcasts. This analysis revealed that Spotify offers the most social features and personalized podcast rankings but is heavily music-focused and frequently criticized for its poor podcast experience. Overcast delivers an excellent podcast user experience but lacks social features and recommendation tools. Therefore, there is a strong opportunity to combine a high-quality podcast experience with integrated social features and recommendations, filling a gap in the market and addressing unmet user needs.
User Surveys
User survey responses revealed a strong interest in marking and ranking personal favorite podcasts, including creating an "all-time favorite" lists to share with friends. More than half of users' podcast consumption stems from recommendations, yet many rely on manual methods, such as notes apps, screenshots, or Googling, to remember suggested podcasts. Additionally, users struggle with inconsistent methods for sharing recommendations, highlighting an opportunity to streamline this process and enhance the podcast discovery and sharing experience.
The goal
Design a new feature for PocketCasts that enables users to effortlessly track, organize, and share their favorite podcast episodes and shows, allowing seamless recommendations to friends across any podcast platform with just a few clicks.
To confirm the problem that this new feature needed to solve, I synthesized my research using tools like an Affinity Map, Empathy Map, and Customer Journey
Despite being an avid podcast listener myself, it was essential to develop a User Persona that was capable of depicting the needs of the overall user
Affinity Mapping
The survey data provided me with several strong directions of data of to follow, to confirm these trends I created an Affinity Map.
Here’s what I found:
Users often have to exit their podcast app to complete a recommendation or notate a podcast they want to listen to in the future -- this process is mostly manual
There is a strong and impactful social element to podcasts despite it being viewed as a mostly independent activity. This social aspect helps to grow the podcast space overall and the listener base.
There is a desire for visibility into what a user’s social circle is listening to
There is a desire for the ability to create personal rankings / remember what the user listened to previously
Customer Journey Map
Since this project involved adding a feature to an existing application, I decided to create a Journey Map so I could clearly understand where this new user experience would fit.
Empathy Map
As an avid podcast listener myself, it was easy to relate to the data I had uncovered. However, I wanted to have an opportunity to step outside of my own podcast experience and truly understand the feelings of a user in this scenario. To achieve this, I created an Empathy Map.
User Personas
At the end of my research synthesis, I developed my User Persona. Since this project was adding a singular feature and my research had strong similar trends, it was more efficient to utilize one User Persona.
Project Goals
To wrap up my research synthesis, I took a step back to view the application and this new feature as a whole but evaluating the Business and User Goals as well as the Technical Considerations involved.
Samples of the affinity map:
Defining the problem
How might we help Alex seamlessly organize and categorize his favorite podcast episodes and recent listening history, creating a more curated and shareable podcast listening experience?
Problem Statement #1:
Alex, an avid podcast listener, often finds it difficult to remember or revisit his favorite episodes across different genres and topics. Despite enjoying a variety of content, Alex lacks an easy way to rank, categorize, and quickly access his personal favorite episodes. Further, he struggles to see his most recent listens in an efficient way. This leads to frustration and a scattered recollection process, especially when he wants to recommend an episode to friends.
How might we enable Alex to share his favorite podcast episodes in a seamless, platform-independent way, reducing errors and fostering a more connected experience?
Problem Statement #2:
Alex, a frequent podcast listener, loves sharing his favorite episodes with friends. However, since podcast platforms often aren’t compatible with one another, Alex has to rely on clunky and error prone manual workarounds—like waiting for their friend to take a manual note or giving detailed search instructions—to share episodes across different platforms. This process creates a detached user experience, breaking the natural flow of connection and conversation. It also creates for the potential of a missed connection of podcast listener growth as the manual notation can be forgotten or lost in the shuffle.
With the problem clearly defined, I designed the feature to seamlessly integrate with the existing brand and user experience
User Flows
I started out by considering what flows the users would go through, focusing on four key flows. I came back to these User Flows a few times and after developing wireframes and completing User Testing. Example user flow:
Low Fidelity Wireframes
With so many ideas swirling, putting pen to paper forced me to get specific and focus on how these concepts could effectively translate into a seamless user experience. This required mapping out a few different variations of my key screens and not getting too attached to one solution path, an open mind was essential to these first designs.
Mid Fidelity Wireframes
Transitioning to mid fidelity wireframes would serve as the version that I would bring back to users for User Testing.
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New List Item
High Fidelity Wireframes
Usability Testing & Priority Iterations
Revision #1 - Add a rating
The star rating component is central to the feature's ease of use and encourages users to quickly rate podcasts for future reference and sharing. Allowing half-point ratings helps users manage a high volume of podcast favorites effectively.
Design Evolution:
User Testing: Prompted a switch from a counter +/- design to a star selection, as the counter was too tedious and required multiple clicks.
Usability Testing: Confirmed that users expect to simply click the star that matches their rating, aligning with familiar patterns.
To ensure clarity, I researched rating designs and tested different approaches. I opted for unfilled star icons by default to prevent confusion, aligning with the design of the category buttons below. While this insight wasn’t directly shared by users, it addressed potential issues by refining the design for better user understanding.
Revision #2 - Rethinking the star icon and name
During usability testing, several users asked if the feature was for private ratings or public reviews, highlighting the need to differentiate this personal ranking and category feature from existing public review systems in podcast apps.
Design Changes:
Introduced a new bookmark/star icon to convey that the feature is for personal use, aligning with the concept of saving for future reference.
Used red branding to match the app’s existing design system.
Renamed the feature to “Ranking” to emphasize personal organization over public visibility, avoiding confusion associated with the term “Rating.”
Revision #3 - Navigation
Usability testing revealed that users struggled to associate "Your Favorites" with "Your Profile," often needing assistance to locate their rated podcasts. To address this, I prioritized making the feature more accessible by integrating a dedicated icon in the main navigation bar, encouraging users to engage with it and providing a clear path to access their favorites.
Design Changes:
The feature was relocated to the main navigation bar, replacing "Up Next," giving it a prominent and easily discoverable position.
The final design
The final prototype showcases a new Pocket Casts feature that empowers users to:
Rate individual episodes or entire podcasts
Create and save personalized podcast categories
Curate custom recommendation lists from their rankings and categories, enabling seamless sharing, regardless of their friends’ preferred podcast platform
Recapping my journey on this project
This project challenged me to navigate the constraints of an existing design system, requiring me to quickly familiarize myself with the app's flows and design elements. Additionally, I needed to carefully define a focused scope, ensuring it was both impactful and manageable within the project timeline.
My main learnings:
I felt validated and encouraged when test users shared unprompted feedback, mentioning real-life scenarios where the feature would solve their problems
I ensured my design solutions aligned with user needs by frequently revisiting the problem statements and seeking informal feedback from users and friends throughout iterations
I focused heavily on the visual design stage, aligning my work with the existing design system, which proved more time-intensive than I expected but strengthened my attention to detail and design consistency
I gained valuable practice in wireframing and visual design, improving my intuition and developing a strong rhythm for future projects
I improved my ability to articulate design thinking, building confidence and clarity in communicating my design decisions