With its mission to make podcasting as easy as making a phone call, CallCast aims to bring in new podcasters to create and publish podcasts in a simple way. 

The beta version was being tested, and it was experiencing a high uninstall rate. Before the initial release, the app needed a redesign.

I led the design and research and collaborated with another designer. In addition, I worked alongside a Product Manager and 1 Engineer.

Competitors

Looking at other products that offer similar services, we found CallCast has some great features that competitors do not offer, such as inviting guests through phone call, no sign up required for guest(s), and publish to iTunes. However these features were difficult to find, and users were not aware of them.

One key feature that CallCast did not have was an In-App Publish feature which is offered by its direct competitor. This could potentially be one of the MVP features and we decided to do more research to understand the user needs.

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User Interviews

We interviewed 10 users consisting of existing users, new users with no podcasting experience, new users with podcasting experience.

• "If it was easy to use and sound quality is good, I would podcast on my phone."
• "I want an easy way to make my podcast sound professional."
• "[I would pay] if they were a proven quality podcasting service."

As the new users did not have professional equipment to start podcasting, they were more interested in using the CallCast app. Users with podcasting experience had other software to record and edit, and tended to use this app for publishing only since CallCast couldn’t offer the sound quality they would expect.

So we decided to focus on the novice users. 

Assessing The Current App

Users were also given 3 tasks to complete using the current CallCast app. 

1. Record a podcast with a guest
2. Add a background sound clip
3. Publish your podcast

Below illustrates where users got confused.

Some of the key insights we gathered through the research process:

To determine which flow to focus on, we mapped out the user journey of recording a podcast: recording, editing, and publishing. Surprisingly, I learned that users were most confused during recording with a guest and publishing flows, not during the editing flow which we initially thought would be the most complex.

My team began brainstorming all of the features that could help Georgina and prioritized them according to the MoSCoW (Must have, Should have, Could have, & Won't have) chart. 

We decided to focus on the record, in-app publishing, and library features for the MVP. 

My initial idea was to put the recording CTA on the home screen. After a few iterations, we decided to change the home screen from the recording page to the user's library as accessing the podcast files was the main task for most users. Bottom navigation was also added, with an option to create a new podcast from any screen.

The wireframes went through 5 iterations, each followed by a usability test.

Below is the iteration of the "Invite Guest" page, which was the most confusing page for users.

Users had great feedback on the new design. The beta version uninstall rate was decreased by almost 50%, and the new user sign-up rate went up by 25%. 91% of the invited users signed up and used the free minutes that came with the signup. Most new users who utilized the free minutes were willing to pay for additional minutes, which could lead to creating subscription options for the business.

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