Mobile Apps
KUOW Listener App
KUOW Public Radio is an NPR member station and the Puget Sound region’s number one radio station for news. It’s mission is to create and serve a more informed public through its vision of broadening conversations and deepening understanding—a goal that is tricky to achieve as listeners increasingly are bypassing their radio signal in favor of streaming NPR (and other new services) directly to their devices.
Moby worked with KUOW on a responsive redesign of its suite of digital products, which not only simplified content creation and management, but also streamlined pledge drive efforts, membership management, underwriting/advertising, media players, and analytics insights and reporting. The first of such initiatives was to build a modern mobile app that would engage with listeners on the one device they always had with them.
Solution
News delivered daily
The KUOW mobile app is first and foremost an amazing listener app, giving users easier and more intuitive access to the KUOW live stream and podcasts, as well as easy reading of stories right from the home screen.
Utilizing the same API that powers the KUOW website, CMS, and donation platform, Moby created the KUOW mobile app using a cross-platform development tool, Xamarin, which allowed for the creation of a native app experience for iOS and Android, but with a single, non-web codebase.
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Homepage News
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Podcasts
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Mixtape
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Listen Live
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Queue
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Story Detail
More than just radio
One of the key goals of the app was to allow a new generation of listeners to engage with the KUOW newsroom in a way that was familiar and easy for them. So, the launch of this app marked the migration from a radio-centric nomenclature of "Shows" to the more modern and familiar equivalent of "Podcasts".
With this change came user interface and experience expectations that had to be fulfilled by the app. We of course have subscribing to Podcasts, but to really make something special we created the concept of a "Queue" – an inclusive playlist that users could add podcast episodes to as well as individual stories from the news feed.
Lastly, like any good radio app we included a robust listen-live player that not only allows anyone to listen to their local NPR station from anywhere, but also increases engagement with KUOW's business sponsors by creating the ability to provide visuals and links for the stream's dynamic ad insertion.
Impact
Improved user experience.
Powerful results.
The results of the new KUOW digital ecosystem are powerful indicators of an improved user experience and, as a result, user engagement. During the first month in the app stores the mobile apps grew the KUOW install base by over 30k users. More impressive over the course of the first few months the they increased engagement by a steady 15k - 20k active users a month.
