Pop at your finger tips.
Overview
SBS PopAsia is Australia's #1 Asian pop network on Radio & online. Streaming on a multitude of platforms in Australia and worldwide.
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Project: SBS PopAsia native music streaming app
Services: UX research, product strategy, site architecture and wire-framing
My role: Product Manager, UX researcher and UX information architect
Industry: Broadcast media
Project duration: 6 months
Project outcomes: Product was shipped and launched on Apple and Google play stores. There was an average monthly increase of 5-8% in audio streaming, over a 6 month period.
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The challenge
In 2014, SBS PopAsia's mobile streaming app was underperforming, falling below business KPIs. To avoid a decommissioning, of the product. The team needed to find new ways to increase stream numbers.
Go to:
Data analysis
Looking at historical data, moving backwards of a year. We looked at live streams numbers and podcast catch-up numbers. With the addition of stream numbers on third-party platforms, Tunein and Soundcloud.
Trend analysis
A heuristic, competitive & comparative review of music streaming apps. Also, to understand, the relationship between popular streaming services versus devices, I looked into iTunes and Google Play stores. I ran interviews with content producers, who had a good grasp on traffic numbers. Expert knowledge of user interactions with content, on radio, website and social media.
ABC Listen app, I heart radio app, Nova app, Triple J app, Shazam app and TuneIn app.
PopAsia Facebook traffic and content, provided a good understanding of ways viewers consumed content.
Insights
We uncovered that the following types content, raised traffic across all platforms.
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News about scandalous romances, new song releases, new music videos
and concert announcements.
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Competitions to win concert tickets, were a huge driver of traffic into the platforms.
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The demographic audience, sat between the ages of 12 - 24 years old. This groups spent a majority of screen time on mobile devices, over desktop/tablet. Shared a lot of content via Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter. The data showed more listeners
used Android devices.
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Stories that broke, were topical and time sensitive, competing with international news releases. Producers aimed to break stories before the rest of Asia (or the world)
and be the first in Australia.
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Live radio show engagement was, positive. Listeners would call in to make song
dedications and requests.
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At live SBS PopAsia events, live gameplay would attract high audience engagement.
Product strategy and solution
A strategy to gamify content, meet insights and goal to increase streaming traffic.
The product team, came up with a Bingo-style game. That would sit inside the streaming app. With its own section, a user could tap on a 'song cover' tile to match up with the song that was streaming. Match 9 tiles (9 songs) and the user can enter into the weekly competition draw, to win prizes. The purpose to gamify streaming, encourages listeners to return and stream for longer.
A redesign of the native apple app and a new build for an android app was in scope.
Key requirements were:
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Ensuring that news releases, were front and centre of the home page.
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Audio streaming, set to default play. To ensure auto-streaming as users opened the app.
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Build in an interactive radio schedule, to offer content not found on home page.
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Allow users to listen or a buy a song via 'the store' and watch the music video,
by tapping on a song tile.
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Allow for a 'top 30' voting submission, as per ability on the PopAsia website.
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Add to a playlist maker, which allows listeners to share and request the
song to play on live radio.
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A photo gallery for users generated content - by way of selfie submissions.
Next steps - Architecture, wireframes and scoping the project out.
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I began to develop the architecture, wireframes and document functional requirements. Then later, worked with a third-party app developer, who specialised in audio streaming.
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Wireframes and workflow
Managing stakeholder expectations, we agreed on the requirements to lock in features. I went on to develope more detailed wireframes, click here to view and workflow. To view the workflow, click here
Low-fidelity sketches of screen features.
Result
Upon its release on Sept 2014, there was an average monthly increase of 5-8% in audio streaming, over a 6 month period. Peaking especially during school holiday periods.
‘PopBingo’, became a successful competition mechanism and content driver. It has become a sustainable source of content. And has morphed into future versions, since its release in 2014.
The app can be download from Apple Store or Google Play now.
