Creating the audio formats platform
By 2020, despite featuring major shows, the platform's podcast listening experience didn't fully meet power users' needs for habit formation. I led the team building the podcast core experience, central to Spotify's strategy.
MY ROLE
Senior Design Manager and Product Area Lead
Senior Stakeholder Management
Design Direction
TIMELINE
2020 - 2022
The Challenge
Combining music and talk audio in one app brings benefits advantages, but crafting a user-friendly, comprehensive experience rivaling specialized podcast apps was a challenge. Our objective: to overcome this and establish a best-in-class podcast listening experience.
The Team
I expanded our team from five to fifteen talented product designers, actively recruiting and establishing a structured approach. This expansion enabled us to comprehensively design for all talk audio formats, including podcasts, audiobooks, listener-creator interaction, live listening, and foundational platform aspects.
A well-structured team with a strong culture is key to efficiently tackling complex, high-pressure challenges and is vital for successful growth and adaptability.
The Process
My areas of focus with the goal of empowering ICs and Managers in the team:
01. Identify Experience Gaps
Directed the team to focus on Journey mapping, competitive analysis, and in-depth research. We identified the specific areas where user experience needs improvement.
02. Prioritization and Strategy
Working closely with my product partner, I ensured we had clear direction from senior stakeholders and were aligned with key business priorities.
03. Elevate Craft and Quality
To uplift the overall quality of our output, I stayed hands on. I coached the team on crafting compelling narratives and engage effectively in stakeholder discussions.
Outcomes: Improving Podcast Listening 🚀
Onboarding & Import Shows
To enhance podcast habit formation, we implemented a taste onboarding process for selecting podcasts and refined this process to include importing followed shows from other apps. This approach resulted in a significant boost in user engagement, evidenced by increased podcast listenership and improved retention rates among new users.
Trailers & Clips
We introduced a fast and engaging method for listeners to discover new shows through trailers. This feature led to quicker audience engagement, resulting in more episode plays and audience expansion. Our data showed a substantial increase in first-time listens and subscriptions for shows featuring trailers.
Topic & Host Hubs
We developed topic hubs using a knowledge graph, enabling users to explore and discover more content of interest. In 2023, while leading the Search team for Personalization, we integrated these topics into the search function, enhancing content discovery.
Contextual recommendations
We revamped podcast show pages with a tab layout and contextual "more like this" suggestions, greatly improving content discovery. This redesign resulted in a notable uptick in user engagement and exploration, evidenced by increased time spent on new shows and episodes.
New episode notifications
In response to user feedback, we made the bell icon for new episode notifications more prominent, simplifying the subscription process. This change resulted in a rise in user engagement with new episodes.
Episodes in Search
We improved Spotify's search functionality to include results from users' followed shows and episodes, enhancing content findability. This update led to more engagement, with searches directly resulting in episode plays.
Podcast Ratings
We introduced a rating system for podcasts on Spotify, enhancing user interaction and feedback. This feature not only increased the visibility of popular podcasts but also led to a measurable rise in user engagement, evidenced by higher ratings correlating with an uptick in listens and subscriptions.
Podcast Chapters
We added chapter functionality to podcasts, simplifying episode navigation. This feature was essential for the successful launch of audiobooks.
Podcast Transcripts
We introduced podcast transcripts to fulfill our commitment to accessibility, ensuring all users can access our content. This was especially important as we expanded our exclusive content offerings.
Key results
9%
⌃ Podcast listener growth
5%
⌃podcast consumption
There is more!
Elevating podcasts to a top-tier experience was a long-term effort. It laid the groundwork for Audiobooks, which my team and I successfully integrated into Spotify's core. For more details on how we improved podcast experience, please reach out.
“Yaprak demonstrated world class ux-design skills and effectively managed a whole team to deliver on time sensitive complex asks even when the input was somewhat vague.”
Dzana Dedovic, Program Management Lead for Podcasts
“ Yaprak and I had the best product/design partnership I've had in my 25 or so years doing this kind of work."
Frances McNamara, Product Director at Spotify
“As a manager, Yaprak is always approachable, supportive, and honest. She just wants to see you succeed, and she'll do everything in her power to ensure that happens."
Daniela Estevez Fernanded, Staff Designer
Direct report
"Yaprak stands out as one of the best managers I've ever had. With a diverse background and years of experience in various markets, she combines strategy with rare soft skills."
Fabiano Souza, Staff Designer
Direct report
“ Yaprak is an amazing manager and leader. She not only served as a source of inspiration and empowerment for me but consistently advocated for my professional growth, and has had a huge impact on my career. She is an incredibly talented designer, consistently offering a compelling point of view to help shape a strategy or experience, with a keen eye for visual design that ensures attention to important details."