Case Study – Smokefree Podcast
The micro-site
Brief
The overall aim of the micro-site was to provide anyone and everyone with an Internet connection a means of listening to the Smokefree Podcast. It had to cater for the likes of Internet-savvy business people, and people who rarely use the Internet for more than their email and yet [probably unwillingly] had to find out more about the legislation and how it would really affect them.
It had to look and operate like a top-end highly polished site, whilst remaining true to its goals of being informative yet concise, and more than anything, extremely simple and Disability Discrimination Act compliant.
Aesthetics
The micro-site has been visually separated into four sections, for easy reading and navigating. The Internet user is taken through a natural progression of information.
The main section (Fig.1) contains the page header, introductory paragraphs, navigation and podcast, which can either be played using the embedded player, downloaded as an MP3, read as a transcript or downloaded as a PDF document. Almost no one with a computer – regardless of its specification or Internet connection type – will fail to find a version which they cannot view or listen to.
Fig.1 - Main section of the Smokefree Podcast website.
The contributors section touches on the background of each of the people being interviewed, including their current position and area of expertise (Fig.2). The contributor descriptions can be read by rolling the mouse over each photo in turn, using the tabulation key on the keyboard or by clicking on the photos (in case the Internet user is a non-Javascript user).
Fig.2 - Contributors section of the Smokefree Podcast website.
Following on from this is a resources section with links to further information on aspects covered in the podcast (legislation, health advice, resources and more).
Fig.3 - Resources section of the Smokefree Podcast website.
Finally, there is a referral section (Fig.4) where the user can suggest the site to his/her friend or colleague with minimal effort or commitment. This section also allows people to find out more about the podcast and affiliated products with a few simple clicks.
Fig.4 - Referral section of the Smokefree Podcast website.
An RSS newsfeed is used as an alternate method of transmitting the podcast. A feed can be subscribed to by an iPod or an aggregator (Fig.5), resulting in the user automatically being notified as and when each new podcast comes out.
Google Analytics is being used to track exactly how many listeners the podcast receives, whereabouts across the globe they are accessing the site from, which websites directed them to the podcast, which keywords they used to find the site on Google search engine, and many other interesting statistics which will allow for further metrics-driven strategy on future sites (Fig.6).
Fig.6 - Website usage statistics in Google Analytics.
Technical Approach
The whole website is engineered in such a way as to:
- Facilitate the user regardless of the web browser, platform, operating system or device he/she is using;
- Reflect user's system settings and browser configuration;
- Ensure that any special conditions the user may be browsing in do not cut him/her off from relevant content and functionality.
The above are achieved by making the pages accessible and Web standards compliant. Certificates can be viewed and inspection performed live and any time:
- Markup code inspection using W3C's HTML validator;
- Style sheet code inspection using W3C's CSS validator;
- Markup code inspection using WDG's HTML validator;
Accessibility implies having the website conform to WCAG 1.0 and Section 508 specifications (can be inspected using WAVE and Cynthia Says accessibility test suites), which make it accessible to people with disabilities.
The website also supports advanced browser features, such as access keys, pop-up descriptions and newsfeed channel notification. Each navigation link on the website has got an access key attached, which makes it possible to be activated using one's keyboard (Fig.7).
Fig.7 - Website's access key menu on Opera browser
All navigation links on the page may be accessed during the podcast without interruption to the streaming audio. The listener is warned that an additional page will be opened by the means of an indicator on the link (Fig.8). Both navigation links and external link indicators behave in a consistent manner when characterising unvisited, on-focus and visited links: unvisited are green, bold and underlined, visited have a dotted underline instead of a solid one, and all light up in sharp red when focused on.
Fig.8 - (From left to right) unvisited, on-focus and visited link.
The whole page fits entirely into any screen resolution or window size higher than 800x600, and is perfectly readable and functional on lower ones, such as 640x480. The text throughout the page is scalable and as such, responds to individual browser settings (Fig.9).
Fig.9 - Page on Internet Explorer with different text size settings.
All page elements are semantically structured, which not only guarantees readability for the user, but also makes the page more understandable for a robot, i.e. search engine crawler (Fig.10).
Fig.10 - The page without CSS; Semantic elements outlined.
The podcast
A good podcast is much more than simply the sum of its parts. Podlab believe that there are three main areas to take into account when judging a podcast, and we try to make sure that we take the same points into account when creating a podcast (Fig.11).
Fig.11 - the Smokefree Podcast.
First and foremost is the quality and clarity of recordings. Speech recorded in an echo-ey hall will invariably sound just like ... well ... speech recorded in an echoing hall. Not only does poor clarity affect the perception of the brand releasing the podcast, it can even mean that people with hearing difficulties find it difficult to discern the content of the speech. This is the reason why any foreground speech should be 20 decibels (or approximately 4 times) louder than any background sounds/music (Fig.12). To ensure clarity, the SmokeFree podcast was recorded primarily in Podlab's studio on studio-quality equipment, with the on-location recordings being recorded on industry-leading digital Sennheiser condenser microphones.
Fig.12 - Sound mastering in action.
Clarity can only go so far in terms of creating an amazing podcast. The next important point to address is to ensure that content is informative, relevant and engaging. In the SmokeFree podcast, we decided to opt for a 'radio-show' format with a variety of speakers, a number of recording locations, and a target length of approximately than 15 minutes. The final podcast was 14 minutes long, and brought together advice, opinions and examples into a detailed yet fast-paced podcast. We spoke to employment law consultants to ensure that the content was accurate, and then to a scriptwriter to ensure that the content was both as understandable and as compelling as possible.
Creativity is the key that helps turn dull speech into an interesting podcast, yet over-creativity can just as easily alienate listeners. After all, podcasting is a very 'immersive' medium - nobody likes to be trapped listening to contrived sound effects and shouted content! For this reason, we decided to keep the podcast as natural and realistic as possible. To achieve the feeling of listening to an intimate conversation, we decided to record our employment lawyer in a cafe. This, combined with the need for one telephone interview (due to the physical location of one of the contributors), increased the number of aural landscapes and helped create the illusion of a 'radio-show'. This format helps to maintain interest, and also enables the inclusion of various subject-matter experts.