🎧 Auddia: Designing the Future of Immersive Podcasting
🎧 Auddia: Designing the Future of Immersive Podcasting
What did I do?
Role: Lead Product Designer
Company: Auddia Inc
Timeline: Jan 2022 – May 2023
Scope: iOS / Android / B2C
As one of the Lead Product Designer at Auddia Inc, I reimagined the podcasting experience by embedding rich visual storytelling directly into the listening flow. I led the UX and UI strategy, conducted research, prototyped immersive interfaces, and collaborated with engineering to launch a podcast app that blended audio with videos, photos, and clickable content, which resulted in 90% of users interacting with new media and a 230% increase in downloads.
The problem at hand
How might we seamlessly integrate visual elements, such as embedded videos, into our podcasting app to create an immersive storytelling experience that captivates listeners and enriches their auditory journey with complementary visual content?
“I hate switching apps to find the photos they’re talking about during episodes”
“Sometimes I miss half the story because I’m distracted looking things up”
Pain points
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ONE
Users frequently left the app to search for related content.
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TWO
Listening session duration had dropped below 5 minutes.
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THREE
Podcast creators had no way to natively monetize or present rich media.
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FOUR
Drop-off rates were highest in audio-only episodes.
Market opportunity:
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116M+
Monthly podcast listeners in the US alone
-
842M+
In monthly ad revenue spend in the US
-
0
Market focus on immersive audio experiences
Research and UX audit
Cognitive Overload
Users are presented with screens packed with too many buttons, text blocks, and competing visuals, users struggled to locate what they needed. This extra mental effort lead to frustration, slower task completion, and more mistakes. By decluttering the interface, prioritizing key actions and guiding the eye with clear hierarchy we were able to remove friction and help users move through flows seamlessly.
Lack of Visibility
Navigational controls were hidden and inconsistent, users quickly lost their sense of place and abandoned tasks. Without clear cues like highlighted menu items, breadcrumbs, or progress bars they couldn’t tell which page they’re on or how to get where they needed to go. Adding persistent, intuitive indicators restored context and helped keep users moving forward confidently.
Stakeholder workshops
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To cluster pain points
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To evaluate ROI vs dev lift
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To define MVP and beyond
Workshop outcomes
1. Prioritize a real-time multimedia feed integrated with audio player
2. Enable branded content pages for creator monetization
4. Prioritize both the creator and listener
3. Launch revolutionized product under 90 days
Wire-framing
We validated early concepts across 4 core views:
Discover
Immersive Player
My Stuff
Creator Pages
Usability Testing & Insights
Running targeted usability study allowed us to validate how well users understand and interact with Vodacast’s core features. Those now being a new Navigation, Player Tray, Brand Page, Polls, Merchandise, Notifications, Tipping, Talk-Back, and On-Demand Episodes. These core features and pages were those that came up during our above workshops
By moderating these sessions we were able to dig deep into their workflows and mental models to uncover both the specific pain points and broader patterns in how they interacted with the app. This qualitative exploration is designed to surface the highest-impact usability issues, drawing on Nielsen Norman Group’s finding that testing five users uncovers roughly 80 % of problems, we’ve rounded up six to ensure we capture any outliers as well.
The insights we gathered will directly inform our next design iterations, helping us refine feature discoverability, reduce friction, and deliver a more intuitive Vodacast experience.
100
Listen to podcasts weekly
87
Listened to podcasts in last 2 days
12
Screener Completions
40
Listened to a podcast today
“It was so easy to follow along, I didn’t have to leave the app once to find content I was curious about .”
— Testing participant
Business impact
Final thoughts
This project was a landmark moment in my career, both in the impact we delivered and the stretch it demanded of me. At a scrappy startup, I stepped up to own the end-to-end vision for a completely new product, guiding ideation sessions, sketching rapid prototypes, and spearheading designs through engineering sprints.
Together, we redefined what podcasting could be: by embedding rich visuals timely images, interactive polls, and synchronized video clips directly into the listening experience; we unlocked entirely new pathways for storytelling, audience engagement, and revenue.
Along the way I navigated unfamiliar territory setting up our first A/B tests, designing for live collateral in multiple podcast players, and forging partnerships with ad-tech vendors to ensure that our beautiful interface also drove real business results.
In doing so, we proved that even the most mature content format can be disrupted through thoughtful, data-informed design, and I emerged with deeper expertise in growth-oriented product strategy, cross-functional leadership, and the art of shipping boldly and quickly when you’re building from zero.
