A Truly Dynamic Voicetracker

When listening to the radio, you’ll often hear the hosts say things such as “You’re listening to 109.7 The Bear.” or “Don’t forget to call in at 2PM to possibly win Taylor Swift tickets!”. Well surprise, it’s most likely prerecorded. (Trust me I was about just as surprised as you are.) Voice-tracking is how talent are able to jockey multiple stations all at once but still give the appearance as if they’re live on the air. However, voice tracking isn’t just for segues like these. This technique is also used to record important things like ads, promotional content, and more.

The original software iHeart had obtained for voice-tracking was the bleeding edge for technology at the time. Now compared to all of the modern technology and automation we have within the industry, it’s time for a much-needed update. We began our talk with stakeholders who initially started with a big AI focus as seen in our white-boarding. However when it got down to breaking down requirements, we were pushed to focus on what we could currently do to improve the user's experience when sitting down to their to do lists in the mornings.

Meeting with users in the beginning was essential to making sure we knew what they needed. I don't know about you but I have personally no clue what the morning of a radio talent looks like. We met with 14 Talent in a forum setting to hear what their mornings were like. Everybody's across the board was pretty consistent. When Talent sit down to work, one of the first things they check is their to do list. Where is that to do list? That's the question. Some Talent get it from their Program Directors and others make it themselves. What our users need is consistency in the timing, format, and process in tackling their to dos for the day.

There is SO much we can show users when they first sit down at the beginning of the day. Traffic? Weather? Beyoncé's new puppy? Arrested Development memes? Let's break down what they really need to know. Today's to dos for starters, let's organize it by category or maybe urgency. Then give them a visual to get an idea of what they've got left like a progress bar or donut. Could we show them what they've got going on tomorrow as well incase they want to work ahead? Let's explore that. Most of the users said they had the news and their social medias open in other windows to keep tabs on what's going on in the world. (Don't really want to be saying jokes when something serious is happening...) Maybe instead of them going between windows we can show them here? Let's bring in news and social trending feeds. The users also mentioned that they use notes a LOT. We'll have a module that follows them throughout that they'll be able to access at any time. Now that's a lot of information! Let's break them down into modules.

One of the biggest requests I get as a designer at iHeart is dark mode. So I thought, "let's be ahead of the curve" and design in dark mode to begin! This includes the use of the dark mode palette I created which can be read more about in my project The Darkest of Modes + Accessibility. The overall theme of this project continues to be, how the heck can I make everything fit. What the key was about these modules was designing them in a way to all fit together which meant some being designed in multiple formats. For example, the phones in the right middle. The phones were originally designed to be upright giving plenty of room for information. I originally assumed I could just squish the module down to squeeze it into tighter spaces but then it lost all detail. In response I specifically designed a horizontal version as well that could sit on a page where it may not be as relevant but still useful.

The design of the home page wasn't easy, but it wasn't nearly as difficult as the actual workspace users would spend the most of their time. In the previous sketches and wireframes you can see where the actual workspace began to take shape, however it looks very different now. The version you see above was after many, many meetings with our users. There's a reason it's called "user" experience and not "what people with zero actual experience in this field think should happen" experience. However at this stage, it still wasn't right. After listening to our users, the information they listed they needed in this workspace was the voicetracker (pictured in bottom center), notes, chat, and track information. I had a little extra room so I thought, why not throw in the news/social feeds? Maybe they can reference something or just keep themselves up to date? Obviously as you can tell above, I got a few big notes.

And this is why user testing is so important... I put THE most important thing at the bottom of the page. Honestly, how silly of me. But things like this happen all the time and that is why it is so important to include who you're designing for in the process. So of course I moved the voicetracker up to the top where it belonged and move the more relevant pieces of information down, getting rid of the rest. In this instance we're creating a frontsell which means we need to know about the artist and song. If this was a promo or an ad, we'd need the company's information there instead and etcetera. This gives us a dynamic space that conforms to what our user needs in each situation. Another needed module I didn't realize was hotkeys. Not only does the Talent have quick access to their favorite weird animal noises but this module takes up the perfect amount of space without presenting too much information to overwhelm the user. Overall this page feels so much cleaner and creates an organized work space for the Talent to fly through, or take their sweet time through, their to dos.

Overall I created five pages for our Dynamic Voice Tracker: Workflow, Library, Phones, Feeds, and Voice Tracker. Each are filled with the modules I created, placed in patterns across pages to create consistency throughout the application. I invite you to explore the pages and get a little taste of what it's like to be a radio talent!