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BBC Sounds on mobile

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KEXP's new Apple TV experience

I love KEXP . It’s a listener-supported radio station in Seattle. It streams all around the world on its website and mobile app. And they’ve had a really good app for the Apple TV for some time - great to stream in the house at a high volume!  And I’ve reviewed them before here . Oh, and also here .  They recently released an excellent new version of the app for Apple TV. And although it doesn’t introduce a lot of new features, it’s way more visually engaging and maximizes the screen real estate much better than before. Here are some of the major changes... Additional, prominent functionality- Archive (stream any show from the past) and streaming Settings The old version had a lot of wasted, unused screen real estate while the new version makes more efficient use of the screen New, large, colorful tiles along the bottom represent each song played in chronological order You can scroll left and right to see history of songs played (much further back in history than before) Larg...

Icons and snackbars with Google Events

Sometimes conveying the meaning of an icon is hard, especially when the meaning isn't just one thing but two things. In the case of Google Events, they use an intuitive bookmark icon to let users save an upcoming concert. That's one thing - but what's the benefit or impact of saving the event in the first place? That's a challenge to get across without supplementing the experience with something else.  Several months ago, we were planning to see Luna at Lincoln Hall. After doing a search for the show, I found a list of upcoming Luna shows. We weren't sure which date would work, so we saved a few. After tapping the hollow bookmark icon, it filled with color (an ubiquitous, best practice for an on/off toggle to provide visual feedback).  But on top of that, Google displayed a snackbar (a pattern from Material Design) in the bottom right of the screen to tell us the benefit - 'You'll get reminders and updates about this event'. Finally, in the snackbar, the...

Setting a price alert on Stubhub

A few weeks ago, my wife and I really wanted to see Alvvays and Frankie Rose at Metro in Chicago. But the show sold out and I was left to look for tickets second-hand. I've used Stubhub before to purchase concert tickets but up until now, hadn't tried their Price Alert feature which lets you set a ticket price max and be notified when the price goes below it. The user experience from beginning to end was really good. The feature is easy to find and provides very mobile-friendly controls to create the alert. The Price Alert tab was prominent on the event details screen - very easy to find. Note: today (1/5/18), Stubhub has removed those tabs and you have to tap an Info button top right of the viewport to look for the same feature. It's a still a good UX once you get there but it's an additional step. The Price Alert feature is intuitive and uses tappable numbers to let me pick the quantity of tickets (not a clunky dropdown menu or less efficient plus/minus p...

Metacritic's inconsistent search UX

Metacritic is an app that aggregates critics' reviews for movies, games, TV, and music all across the web. It's a very useful site that I use occasionally to check out reviews for recent albums - and I'll link out to the reviewers' sites to read more detailed reviews. Most of the site is organized fairly well. Search results are laid out in nice, usable columns based on category. And once I find a specific album, I can read each of the reviews very easily.  There are just a few issues when search for an album. Although I can eventually find what I'm looking for, the experience is less than optimal - some elements really don't afford clicking or they change position in the UI, and the overall look and feel is inconsistent depending on where you are in the flow. Here's a few of the steps when searching for an album... A search for Wolf Parade begins in the typical location - top right of the UI. The search input looks like a te...