A Podcast App for All Seasons
Usability Heuristics, Accessibility, and a Dark Pattern or two in the Apple Podcasts App
This reflection is part of my coursework for Designlab’s UX Academy.
I, like many millennials who are long past 30, love a podcast, and I use Apple Podcasts almost exclusively for my podcast experience.
I haven’t, however, ever stopped to think about why. Do I find it particularly easy to use? Do I find it accessible, or perhaps inclusive? Am I being lulled into a sense of comfort and familiarity while an application slowly shapes my behavior over time? Let’s find out!
Usability Analysis
From a learnability standpoint, the app really shines. The affordances for the horizontal scroll on the home page make it clear there’s more content to the right, and I also have the option to see all the options in a vertical list if that’s what I prefer. The use of the three dots to open additional options is consistent across the app, making it easy to know where settings can be altered if I choose. And scrubbing and volume adjustment sliders are mapped to effectively.
In terms of memorability, I can easily come back to episodes I haven’t started and see how much time is left. The show page also allows me to see what’s sitting unlistened to in my Downloads or relive my listening journey with a show if that’s what I want to do.
Accessibility Analysis
Some hits and misses here.
Navigation and Interaction feels accessible for the main functions of the app. There’s ample space around the play and forward/back buttons, and the size of the Latest Episode Buttons and Up Next (above) are big enough to easily press. Other buttons, however, feel far too small. Adding a podcast to your library using the tiny “+” icon is hard enough without it also having little space between it and the menu icon. The buttons for play and advancing above the menu bar are also easy to miss and spaced frustratingly close together.
The text in the navigation bar could also be more readable. Making it slightly larger or making the text all caps would make the navigation easier to read.
A Dark Pattern or Two
While I find the app to be fairly up front and honest with its users, it does have its share of features to wave a finger at.
All of the notification settings are buried within the settings app. This isn’t necessarily a problem if you’re familiar with Apple and it’s products, but a new user does need to dig to be able to customize how they want to be told a new episode has been added to their feed. And from what I remember, the defaults are set to notify you in some way to push for engagement. Tsk-tsk.
The app’s new subscriptions/premium content is also a bit suspect. While I think Premium content is labeled fairly well in the Browse section, some shows and channels have a “Try Free” button rather than a “Subscribe” button, which seems like it’s built to cause a bit of confusion, or at the very least benefit from people forgetting they signed up for a trial. Also, a fair amount of “New & Noteworthy” shows and “Editor’s Choice” suggestions include Premium content, but you have to open the show page to know that. An additional label or signifier for Premium shows would make this feel less sneaky.
So, what have we learned?
I think the usability of the Apple Podcasts app keeps me coming back. I have some built in familiarity with the OS and the app itself, and I benefit from having locked in the settings I prefer a long time ago.
On the negative side, the app could use a closer look at its accessibility to ensure it is inclusive to all users, and there are a few Dark Patterns lurking in the app designed to promote engagement that could be removed or redesigned. But there are ways to toggle those settings off, and there are some additional steps involved before signing up for premium content, so on the whole, it could be worse.
