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Choose your audiobook narrator,
or become a narrator yourself!

Colleb

#UI/UX
Duration | Feb 2023 – Mar 2023
Role | Research, Survey, UI/UX Design, Branding
Software | Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Figma
Colleb is an exclusive college student matching app that helps students connect with like-minded collaborators beyond their immediate circle based on personality and skills. By prioritizing compatibility, students can review others' portfolios who have similar tastes, relevant skills for a project, and availability to simplify the recruiting process.

SpotioBooks

Partnership: Cornell Tech and Spotify
SpotioBooks is tailored to provide a framework for Spotify’s Audiobook space. Currently the production of audiobooks is costly and monopolized by large publishing companies. This product aims to reduce the barrier of entry in the audiobook industry by creating a space where anyone can record a published book that has not yet been released in audio format. This will give users several narrators to choose from by having access to a preview before purchase.
Timeline
Jan – May 2022
(5 months)
Technique
Research
Interview
Experiment
Presentation Design
UI/UX Design
Team
Min Heong Hong (Designer)
5 Engineers
Software
Figma
ProtoPie

PROBLEM

It is not easy to get into the audiobook market

Spotify recently announced plans to expand its business into audiobooks and formed a partnership with an audiobook platform, Storytel. Between 2016 and 2021, the Audiobook Publishing industry exhibited strong growth as consumer demand for audiobooks increased. However, it is hard to entry in the audiobook market since:

01

Audible monopolizes audiobook industry

The major player in the audiobook industry is Audible, which makes up about 63.4% of the market.

02

Professional narrators are costly

In the US, hiring professional narrators can be overwhelming and time-consuming, with costs ranging from $100 to $300 per finished hour (PFH).

PROBLEM STATEMENT

How might we amplify Spotify's audiobooks that will be newly launched?

SOLUTION

Anyone can record an audiobook

Users can narrate a book in their favorite place to earn extra money, which also helps Spotify and authors reduce the expense of hiring professional narrators. This service offers an episodic purchase option to empower its users to engage actively in this app as a listener and a narrator.

BUSINESS GOAL

Make a new business model to reduce the barrier to entry in the audiobook industry while reducing expenses at Spotify.

DESIGN GOAL

Design a simple layout that enables existing Spotify users to navigate this app easily and directly while keeping the Spotify design system.

DESIGN GOAL

Design a simple layout that enables existing Spotify users to navigate this app easily and directly while keeping the Spotify design system.

RESEARCH METHOD

Market research
Qualitative research—User Interview
    · Interview goal: how do people perceive audiobooks

RESEARCH FINDING

Audiobook platforms adopt subscription-based business models

Subscription-based business models increase revenue for audiobook platforms. Spotify also uses a freemium business model, which offers both free and paid subscriptions, so users can choose either plan based on what they prioritize.

INTERVIEW FINDINGS

Listeners prefer short-form content,
Creators focus on sound quality

Episodic content is favored over full content, as revealed by interviews listeners. People prefer shorter audiobooks for multitasking, with 30-minute limits, and emphasize sound quality for better comprehension. Content creators, on the other hand, emphasize the importance of sound quality as it directly impacts comprehension levels.

“It’s too boring to listen to the longer length of an audiobook”
- Audiobook Listener
“Not many tools are available for audio-based content creators”
- Content Creator

OPPORTUNITY

Competition among narrators

People create their own content on Instagram and Youtube to earn money, become famous, or just as a hobby, motivating continuous production. Therefore, our idea 'Anyone can narrate an audiobook' can foster competition among narrators for higher rankings and lead to better quality recordings. Also, providing sample audio helps users choose favorite narrators with high quality.

EXPERIMENT

People want to narrate a book!

We experimented with people's willingness to become narrators. We asked 14 people to record a chapter of their favorite book and received recordings. 80% of the participants are non-professional narrators, and 20% of them are content creators.

RESULT

85.7 %
Willing to record another chapter for a monetary incentive.

13m 9s
The average length of the recording time of each chapter.

LOW-FI FIDELITY

ITERATIONS

I chose Iteration 2 as final design since offering e-book on the app requires narrators to buy it, which can make them unmotivated with complicated process.

Iteration 1
Narrators can record audio while reading a book directly on the screen like karaoke apps

Iteration 2
Our app only offers timeline and voice animation while reading a physical book

KEY FLOW

> Listener

> Creator (New recording)

> Creator (Resume recording)

FINAL DESIGN

> Sign in

Welcome, Spotify users

Existing Spotify users can use the audiobook service with their Spotify accounts. While I followed Spotify's design system, I changed dark mode to light mode to differentiate audiobook service from music streaming and podcasts on Spotify.

> Listener

Choose your narrator

Users can choose their favorite narrators by listening to a sample piece of audio of each piece of content. Due to an episodic purchase option, users can choose different narrators for each chapter.

> Creator

Record an audiobook

Once users choose a book they want to narrate, they can record it by clicking the 'microphone' button on the overview page.

> Creator

Resume your recording

Users can always resume and manage all of their recordings on Narrator's page.

TAKEAWAY

Experimenting is helpful to assess our idea

As a design student, I was only confident using UT (User Testing), which I implemented after designing a prototype to analyze users' behaviors while using it. In this case, I could only be aware of the problems of a prototype that I had missed.

However, through an experiment, our team proved that many of the non-professional narrators, who might represent most of the Spotify users, are willing to record a book in return for compensation. This experiment showed user motivation and engagement, so it will be helpful for me to contemplate wider aspects for the future projects other than design.