RadioApp – Bojan Ristevski

Challenge:

To become the Australian standard app for listening to radio while easing the aches and pains of listening to radio in a digital and app focused world. This task required working with commercial radio competitors to get on board for an all in one experience.
Other challenges included audio streaming services that had set a standard for audio experiences.

Solution:

Ideas, personas and prototypes were worked on over the project to tweak and tune the idea into an MVP. Designed and developed RadioApp for Android and iOS as an Australian standard app for listening to radio, whilst being visually appealing and a pleasurable simple experience.

My Role:

• Wireframing
• Idea generation
• UI design
• Prototyping
• User testing
• Asset exports
• EDM + Display ads

The Team:

• Stakeholders
• Project Manager
• Senior Designer
• UX Designer
• App Developers

Concept to MVP

RadioApp started out as an idea to solve a simple problem, “How can I listen to Australia radio with an easy swipe?”

Working with stakeholders and the project team, we quickly established brand identity, personas and user stories to aid the discussion and decision making and planning of app that help Australians listen to radio.

Ideation sessions and wire framing sessions enabled quick paper prototypes to be created and looked at. We moved to digital wireframes and eventually towards using prototyping software to enable testing of features and new interactions with great speed.

A beta version of the app was able to be distributed to other Australian radio broadcasters to showcase the app and its features. This allowed the app to launch with over 44 different radio stations from across Australia with many more to come on-board shortly after.

Beyond MVP

RadioApp had many features mapped out along with updates and improvements required from user feedback and requests. On-boarding and in-app tutorials aided users through new features that were added into the app.

With the rise in podcast use and the availability catch-up for radio shows, these features required major planning, prototyping and testing phases.

New technology such as the Apple Watch also paved the way for new enhancements to RadioApp.

Apple Watch

With the release of the Apple Watch, RadioApp took advantage of a new way to interact with radio.
The challenge was to keep the familiar interface of the iOS app and translate it to the tiny watch interface. Limitations were also in play due to the amount of information able to be displayed and accessed.
Overall a smooth experience was designed with all the RadioApp essentials on the handy little watch interface.

Award Winning

Southern Cross Austereo’s RadioApp was presented and showcased at the 22nd AMY Awards in Sydney.

The AMY Awards, presented by AIMIA, was the longest running and most prestigious Awards in Australia’s digital industry.
(Now Digital + Technology Collective)

In 2016, RadioApp won the ‘Best use of Smartphone or Tablet Device’ category, which was developed to recreate the simplicity of listening to radio in order to keep the medium relevant for smartphone users.