Issues
• Listen Live: The main reason users visit content.krlx.org is to listen to the live radio. Accessing that function is the primary objective of the user and the website design should reflect that. Currently, the ‘listen live’ function is just a tab that users must navigate to and seems secondary to the KRLX blogposts.
o Another issue would be the Play button(s) once users reach the ‘listen live page’. Users are forced to choose between two play buttons and are confronted with unnecessary technical jargon. Users don’t need to know the reasons as to why there is another option for high quality audio. Now, we understand that in order for the user to complete their primary objective on content.krlx.org, they must follow a 4 step procedure:
Orient to content.krlx.org and find the ‘listen live’ tab
Click on it, then orient to new live.content.krlx.org page
See two play buttons and figure out which one to play
o Underlying research: After conducting informal research among a sample of KRLX users, I found that it took them a significant period of time navigate towards the ‘listen live’ and after adjusting to the main website (blogposts), users are taking to ‘live.content.krlx.org’ which has a new user interface disrupting consistency and making the user work even harder. As for the second issues, many users were confused as to which button to press.
(from content.krlx.org on desktop/laptop) (from content.krlx.org on desktop/laptop)
• Overload of /Unnecessary Information: The website has an enormous amount of inessential information.
o ‘Welcome to KRLX’: No wants to be welcomed with a paragraph of info related to the organization. Along with blogpost, this website could be easily confused with Wikipedia rather than a college radio site.
o ‘Categories’: This entire section is a useless navigation tool; with tags like music, news (twice), and uncategorized (?) it’s very obvious that this section doesn’t do a good job of aiding the user in finding particular content. The categories section becomes even more useless when users realize that there is a search bar sandwiched in between the archives and playlist section.
(from content.krlx.org on desktop/laptop)
Solutions
• Again, the primary reason users visit content.krlx.org is to listen to live radio and we want our website to reflect that; this could be done in various ways.
o BIG Play button: Similar to playing music on programs like Spotify, Apple music, etc. KRLX could have a large, obvious play button (rough outline design below). This big, central button condenses the procedure of playing radio into just one step, pressing the button. As for the issue of accessibility for users who desire low quality (mobile users with slow data connection), we can have a line of text underneath asking a troubleshooting question like “Having audio connection issues?”. Users can click on that for a lower quality stream.
The additional text ‘PLAY’ is optional. I put it here for purpose of clarity, but (with more research) if users demonstrate that they don’t need the extra clarity than a simple play button will suffice.
o As for the unnecessary information, I enjoyed the simplicity of live.content.krlx.org (listen live page, black background) and would recommend making that the center of the website and have blogposts be secondary. So when users first visit content.krlx.org they encounter a simple webpage with a large play button. By elevating the importance of the play button in front of a simple page reflects users’ primary objective of listening to KRLX radio.
Possible Prototype
Below is a prototype of the website with a more informed design than before. The design prioritizes listening to the radio (Play button at the forefront) and looks similar to the listen live page. One question that might is arise is ‘What about the blog posts?’ Some options for the word press blog include embedding it into new website or only show highlights with option to visit separate blog page. Below I’ve provided the second option with a highlighted blog post and an option to see more on the blog page.
To view a better image: https://ibb.co/i9Fpww
