The Brief
BBC Sounds bring together the BBC’s live and on-demand radio, music and podcasts into a single personalised experience. How can the new habits for our on-demand, multi-platform world influence, shape and develop BBC Sounds' offering.
The Solution
To develop BBC Sounds for millennials. Focusing on expanding on BBC Sound's social capabilities to allow users to stay connected to their friends and discover even more BBC content through them with BBC Sounds new social features.
We discovered that social habits of millennials focus mainly on interacting with their friends on social media and finding quick entertainment for themselves in a world filled with content. Thus the approach was to redesign BBC Sounds into a hub for both interaction and entertainment for millennials.
BBC Sounds Concept Video
BBC Sounds Persona Research
We first researched on the various listening habits and rituals of millennials and created various different personas that includes busy professionals and college students. Through that, we learnt that there were opportunities for improvement in content discovery, social interactions and popular recommendations on BBC Sound's.
BBC Sounds User Reviews
Users reviews were taken from both the Google Playstore and Apple Appstore, and on various news platforms to understand what current BBC Sound's users are saying.
MYSounds, YOURSounds, OurSounds
We took a step by step process in developing the functions of BBC Sound that would allow us to touch and improve on the individual and social experience of using BBC Sounds. With MYSound's that focuses on the experience, and functions of sharing content on the application and off it. YOURSound's that features a genre-specific way of easing users into BBCSound's by first allowing them to listen to what they love. And lastly OURSound's, that puts to use all the data that has been shared by users and use them as a visual way of podcast/music review.
MYSounds
We are reinventing BBC Sounds for a social, diverse and tech-savvy generation. It is more than just new technology and features that keep this generation interested, brands need to connect with consumers on a personal level, customising the design experience for inclusivity. We are expanding BBC Sounds's social capabilities by focusing on authentic interpersonal interactions, centered around great BBC content. Sharing such content with close friends acts as a seal of approval to it, and this personal recommendation could be just what your friend was looking for instead of recommendations from computer algorithms. Additionally, Social Sounds and Feed on MYSounds allows users to keep themselves updated on their friend's recent activities, and discover new and exciting content as they swipe and scroll along.
YOURSounds
From the reviews of various users using BBC Sounds, we discovered that the lack of clear categorisation of content deterred listeners from immersing themselves into BBC Sounds offerings. As people have specific tastes and interests when it comes to audio content, we saw that as an opportunity to introduce "Guided Sounds", a feature that streamlines and narrows down content to what the listener is looking for. This feature is beneficial to new listeners of BBC Sounds as it guides them into the expansive library of BBC content that is just waiting to be discovered.
OURSounds
With already so much content and information generated by users posting and sharing about what they listen to, this gave us another opportunity to make BBC Sounds a platform where everyone can be engaged and are encouraged to build on. Big data algorithms are used to sieve out keywords or hashtags that people frequently use in their posts about a show or episode, which are then featured on the new social tab on the show's main page. Users can also allow their posts to be made public to start a forum where ideas and views can be exchanged, creating an inclusive community for open discussion, a BBC for everyone.
Made for you
"Made for you" pushes personalisation of the user's playlist by making content curated relevant to them on that day. By connecting their BBC Sounds account with their social media account, we can curate content that is relevant to them based on location, time, and recent social media activity.
BBC Sounds Visualisation
Login & Setup
Users can register and login into their BBC Sound's with ease using their social media accounts. After registering, the app will also sync their social media contacts onto the app. Users will then be able to select what genre or subject category that they are interested in to begin listening to related podcasts that they care about.
Homepage & MYSound's Social
The homepage is designed to be simple and relevant to what the user cares about. Sounds & Mixes of the day curates content that are relevant to whatever activity that they are doing, and a specially curated morning or weekend selection that would add to compliment their day. The homepage will also have our MYSound's social, an in-app story-like function that would allow users to see content that their friends recommend on the app.
MYSound's Feed
MYSound's is the hub of our new BBC Sound's. This is where users can view their friend's listening activities as they discover more content that their friends are listening too and or shared with them.
MYSound's Library
Besides the MYSound's Feed, MYSound's also holds the library where users can toggle between podcasts, mixes and radio stations that they have saved in a organised manner. Giving them the ability to toggle between list view and card views to find content that they want easier and faster.
MYSound's Player & Post Editor
On the player, users will be given various choices on how they would want to share content that they like with their friends & family. Should they choose to share it on their social media platforms or on-app, they will be brought to a editor where they can add text, gifs and sound to their post and share it.
Millennials are diverse and social. They are individualist but they still crave the social interactions that they can only find with their friends, but both in the physical and digital space. We redesigned BBC Sound's for a generation who are always on the go, who love absorbing visual content in the form of quick entertainment like memes and vines. Thus our solution for BBC Sound's was to help compliment that need by adding and improving it's social capabilities in favour of human and emotional connection, thus allowing the users the ability to interact and be entertained.
