Realiti News
Human narrated daily audio news
expertise
iOS development
Mobile app design
User Research
Brand storytelling
tools
Sketch
Xcode
Swift
Flinto
role
Founder
iOS developer
Product designer
UX/UI designer
live
Problem
News anxiety caused by clickbait
methods
I interviewed over 20 news junkies, podcast enthusiasts, audiobook aficionados, and informed citizens.
problem statement
The current news offering has a problem of clickbait, hyperbole, and sensationalism. To the user, the constant dire urgency is unnerving and anxiety inducing. Podcasts and audiobooks feel more calm, long term focused, nuanced, and intimate.
Solution
A zen-like experience of listening to real news
the product
I designed and developed an iOS app that streams human-read audio narrations of popular news and magazines such as Wired, Time, HuffPost, TechCrunch, Reuters, Slate, Mashable, and more.
the market
The U.S. audiobook market had more than 67 million Americans listening to audiobooks in 2016, growing at roughly 33% year over year. The main competitors were Audible, an audiobook subsidiary of Amazon, Scribd, an audio content subscription business, and AUDM, a y-combinator backed audio news startup.
On-boarding
The purpose of on-boarding is to educate and engage the user. In three quick pages I show the user how easy it is to use the app. The last page offers a Wired article demo.
Sign Up
After doing user testing, I discovered that simply offering Facebook and Google sign up buttons confused people. They wanted to try the product. So I created a "Listen without Sign In" button. It allowed them to navigate and listen for a free trial of one month: user acquisition immediately increased.
Carousel
The carousel of news offers a colorful and simple micro-interaction to navigate the news. Like Tinder's swiping, it is novel enough to make interacting with news more zen-like, because there are no headlines, only big colorful news buttons.
Play
Playing and hiding an article is a lot of fun. Swipe down to hide the audio news channel and scroll to search for other options. The simple micro-interaction makes the overlay experience enjoyable, kind of like shuffling a deck of cards.
Settings
Most news apps bury their subscription settings, which is deceitful and unethical. With a quick swipe to the left, you can cancel, leave a review, logout, and more in a single click.
