Project Details

Research Categories: Generative, Evaluative
Project Type: Individual, MICA UX Design M.P.S. Capstone
Roles & Contributions: Research Lead, Project Manager
Project Timeline: 15 Weeks
Faculty Advisors: Christine Chiang, Arkadiy Avrorov, Logan Perez

Winner of the Spring 2022 MICA UXD Capstone Award

Note: The visuals on this page come from my final UX research report and presentation and are meant to showcase my research reporting ability.

This project took place over 15 weeks, emphasizing user research and usability testing. I began by framing the challenge using the d.school method and used my research questions to guide my planning. The above timeline details each phase of the project and the associated activities. Below, I highlight some of the key methods I utilized.

Desk Research

I started my research by reviewing scholarly and reputable material (19 sources) to define and contextualize the problem. In particular, I had to understand how auditory learning works to identify the cognitive factors at play. I also needed to learn more about NPR as an organization and its complex structure, heavily influenced by political and economic macro forces. This desk research was critical to the project, highlighting the need to interview internal stakeholders to develop a feasible solution.

Surveys

Informed by my desk research findings, I created a user survey using Google Forms to gather data from real-life users to establish a baseline understanding of their characteristics, thoughts, and listening habits. I distributed the survey to my personal and professional networks and received 117 responses from 84 participants (including follow-ups). The survey also functioned as a screening and recruitment tool for usability testing. In addition, I gathered quantitative and qualitative data, which helped confirm desk research findings and start defining user archetypes.

Interviews

With context and a baseline understanding of my users, I was ready to gain deeper insights through moderated, semi-structured interviews. I wanted to know about listeners' current experiences, goals, and challenges. Before our conversations, I developed a discussion guide and recruited participants with diverse listening preferences from my survey. Over three weeks, I conducted 12 remote, hour-long recorded interviews with 10 participants (including follow‑ups).

Triading Exercises

I also conducted triading exercises during the interviews to understand listeners' mental models and deep-seated perceptions of various listening formats. Each participant completed three rounds of structured comparisons. This exercise provided insights that I wouldn't have been able to uncover through the interviews themselves, particularly surrounding the relationship between curating one's own content and cognitive load.

Mind Mapping

After each interview, I debriefed by completing a mindmap for each participant to organize the data and my personal thoughts and observations. The structure followed the interview guide format for easy referencing.

Affinity Mapping

After completing the interviews, I synthesized the data to uncover deeper insights and patterns. Then, using the mind maps and the transcripts, I created 490 color-coded notes in Miro and organized these data points into thematic groups. Afterward, I arranged these themes into higher-level supergroups: habits, goals, needs, and challenges, which were the foundation of my personas.

Personas

After completing generative research, I used quantitative and qualitative data to develop two listener archetypes. This was especially important in ensuring a user-centered solution because I am an NPR listener and wanted to mitigate any potential bias. I structured the personas to include goals, tasks, and challenges to aid the development of the subsequent task/user flows. A short bio helps make each persona feel more "real" and their unique characteristics more salient.

Subject Matter Expert Interviews

In addition to NPR listeners, I interviewed and consulted four experts in relevant fields to understand the mission, business, and technical considerations needed to deliver a feasible solution. These experts included a nationally-syndicated NPR producer, an NPR development manager, a podcast developer, and an interaction designer.

Competitive Analysis

I conducted a competitive analysis to understand the solution space and identify product gaps and opportunities. Research insights guided my selection of products with relevant features, and I compared these 11 offerings across 25 categories.

Design: Sketching, Wireframing, & Prototyping

Although this is a research-focused case study, I was required to design and deliver a high-fidelity MVP prototype as part of the MICA Capstone. Informed by my research, I sketched features and created task/user flows. In addition, I designed and prototyped two persona-specific flows using Balsamiq (low/mid-fidelity) and Figma (high fidelity).

Usability Testing

Evaluation is an essential part of design thinking, and usability testing allowed me to gain feedback from real-life NPR listeners. I recruited participants from the survey/screener and used their responses to assign applicable prototype flows based on persona type. I moderated ten usability tests (five participants per flow) based on the recommendations from Nielsen Norman Group, allowing me to gain valuable insights within the project's time constraints.

Rose, Bud, Thorn

I used the Rose, Bud, Thorn technique to synthesize and analyze the data from my usability tests. This technique allowed me to quickly uncover and prioritize successes, challenges, and opportunities and implement these findings for the high-fidelity prototype. In addition, many of the "buds" from this exercise represent ideas that need additional research and helped inform the project's next steps.

User Impact

Users' needs should always be front and center in the design process, and in this case, the research was clear: NPR listeners want to remember the details from programs and segments but often cannot. And, as my research uncovered, remembering via listening is hard. With this in mind, I designed NPR Listen to offload this responsibility and manage listening details on behalf of users so they can instead focus on engaging with content. 

Unified Format Listening is central to this aim, which integrates NPR's audible formats into a single digital product and allows for a Synchronized Listening History. This helpful reference point is synched with users' experiences and works with Enhanced Program Information (tagged metadata) to power additional features that help listeners achieve their goals: topic exploration and discussion.

Business Impact

Although listeners' needs are paramount, I also considered the needs of stakeholders to ensure a feasible solution that aligns with NPR's mission, goals, and long-term strategy. That being said, the needs of both groups are closely related; as a non-profit organization, NPR relies on the direct financial support of listeners and audience size-based sponsorship deals to produce and distribute content (Brinkerhoff and Kinally 2012; Falk 2021; Pew 2021).

With this in mind, I designed NPR Listen to strengthen the brand's portfolio as a more distinct, feature-rich replacement for the brand's current digital listening product: NPR One. The result is increased audience engagement that harmonizes with current revenue models and strengthens NPR's financial stability. This was a critical consideration, with NPR's federal funding constantly threatened (Flint 2017). In addition, a changing media landscape further underscores the need for a solution that reimagines what "radio" means in the 21st century. Through research, I designed NPR Listen to address these concerns and align with the organization's mission to create a "more informed public" (NPR n.d.).

Strategic Impact

NPR Listen will launch as a mobile-first MVP to maximize audience reach and elevate the listening experience using a simplified, core feature set. This approach allows NPR to test and validate while minimizing risk, an important consideration given NPR's more limited resources and advertising (sponsorship) restrictions (FCC n.d.). User feedback can then be used to iterate future versions of the product.

I designed Phase 1 features to meet listeners' most pressing needs with the least amount of resources. During this project, I identified two complementary features for Phase 2: Custom Topic Radio and Shared Playlists. With a mixed but generally positive response during testing, these features do not meet the most immediate needs of listeners and still require additional work.

Looking ahead to Phase 3, Video and Digital Whiteboard Integration with platforms such as Zoom and Miro may provide new and exciting ways to connect and discuss topics online. These concepts were discussed during interviews but reserved for future exploration. Additional research and testing can validate and develop these ideas for the future.