YASMINE EVJEN: I love creating video and Centered episodes
and talking to people.
There's something about podcasting that I still miss,
dialogue between friends, and having
that natural conversation that isn't, let's
be honest, as natural when you have cameras and lights on you.
It's different, and it's something
that I want to get back to and doing both because it's
something that I really miss.
We're here in New York City to chat with Anchor
and hear how they're making podcasting
more approachable through their playful design system.
And while I'm here, I'm going to be
recording a podcast of my own.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
So Liam, I'm here in New York City,
and I'm here for two reasons.
I'm recording a Centered episode,
but I'm also recording our first episode of Design Hotline.
What is Design Hotline?
LIAM SPRADLIN: Design Hotline is our new podcast together
where we're going to take calls from the community answering
questions about design and being a designer.
YASMINE EVJEN: I think the thing that really kind of drove us
wanting to do this in podcast form
is just the natural conversation that people are really
used to having.
LIAM SPRADLIN: So historically, I
feel like there have been a lot of barriers to getting
those conversations out.
But sharing a conversation or podcasting or posting
any kind of audio is something that's
still kind of mysterious.
YASMINE EVJEN: So I had a chance to talk
to Michael, the co-founder of Anchor,
and I had this really interesting discussion
with him.
I got to hear what drives Anchor.
But one of the things that I really
learned from having this discussion with him
is really the desire to allow anyone
that has a voice to give them a platform to express that voice.
And that's something that we, I think both of us,
actually really agree on.
We want to elevate different voices,
and it's really cool that Anchor is
able to give that opportunity to a lot of different people.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
YASMINE EVJEN: What makes podcasting so successful?
MICHEL MIGNANO: I think it's because if you remove some
of the technical challenges--
the microphone, the editing, et cetera--
it's very, very natural and it's easy.
Everyone knows how to do this, right?
And I think when we think about democratizing audio,
we think about, OK, where are all
the people in the world that might
want to have their voice heard?
And how do we get these tools to them
in a way that reduces friction, is easy to use, is super clear,
doesn't require a lot of education.
YASMINE EVJEN: I mean, and if you think about it, where do
most people listen to podcasts?
It's probably on their mobile devices
and while they're commuting.
But it would make sense, could we
find a way to bring the publishing
to a mobile device, which is where people are listening?
MICHEL MIGNANO: Podcasting has always
been this very sort of disjointed workflow.
You've got you've got a set of tools or software products
over here for creation.
I think what we're trying to do with Anchor
is sort of bring all of those pieces under one roof
and into one place so you don't have to think about anything.
YASMINE EVJEN: One of the super unique things about Anchor
is that you can actually send voice messages to the creators.
And it's something that's really different from
any other creation process.
MICHEL MIGNANO: We had always wanted
to not just make podcasting easier,
but also innovate on the format and find new ways to modernize
the format.
So if I'm listening to your podcast,
I can send you a voice message, you can listen to it.
You can actually respond to me privately
if we want to have a back and forth discussion about what
we're talking about.
And then you can make the decision
to publish any or all of that conversation
into your podcast episode.
We'd like to give people more ways to interact with the host.
We'd like to give the hosts more ways
to interact with the audience.
We all have the internet in our pockets.
You would think that we would be more connected to each other
as human beings than ever before.
But the reality is we're not actually having
real conversations.
We were born to have conversations and listen
and have a dialogue.
And so that's one of the other things
I love about podcasting is it just feels very human.
YASMINE EVJEN: I learned from Michael just
how easy it is to start a podcast from your phone.
It's something that can be pretty complicated, Anchor
is really there to help you along the way,
helping you understand how to record,
how to edit, and then get it out to the world.
EMMI HINTZ: So I think it's introducing them to the tool,
helping them figure out how to build the episode.
Then, in the Publish screen, layering the segments to show,
this is your complete episode.
And we use, again, depth to just show
that there's multiple segments in your episode,
and making it feel like a finished piece with the episode
title and description, creating this complete package
and helping the user understand that this whole package is what
your episode is going to be, and this will be the thing
that you share with friends and that you distribute
to different platforms.
YASMINE EVJEN: All right.
Let's go ahead and create our first episode here.
So we recorded some of our audio,
and I can go ahead and add some background music.
As I'm adding the background music,
I can actually just tap on some of them.
EMMI HINTZ: Depends on what vibe you're feeling.
YASMINE EVJEN: Yeah.
Let's go with that one.
Let's just add it right away.
We can add it to the episode.
And you can actually title one of the segments.
So let's just call this Intro Segment.
And I love that you can actually title the segments
because if you have so many different segments,
it might be hard when you're rearranging them.
So it's nice to kind of do that.
And you can go in there and you could add a voice message
if people start leaving it.
Or you can record more, and then as well as adding transitions.
EMMI HINTZ: And so you can add an interlude
segment between the two.
And just being able to identify that quickly when you
look at the progress bar, it shows you
what your episode looks like.
Publishing is also, I think, something
that's very scary to people.
So we try to make it more approachable
by giving you the full episode description.
And in there, we try to prompt you to understand what
a good episode title would sound like, or give more
details about what's in your episode and anything else
you think your listeners want to know
to try to prompt people to have to write an episode
description that gets their listeners excited.
All right, should we publish?
YASMINE EVJEN: Let's do it.
EMMI HINTZ: All right.
YASMINE EVJEN: All right.
And when you actually publish your episode,
you get this really nice animation and fireworks.
It's like celebrating your success of getting through it.
EMMI HINTZ: Right.
Yeah, I think it makes it just more exciting for people.
And recording is a little bit intimidating,
so once you make your first episode
and put all those components together,
it really is a very exciting experience.
So we try to do that and reflect that with the fireworks.
YASMINE EVJEN: It's almost like having
a friend that's there to guide you
through each one of those steps.
They do this through their use of color
that's shown throughout their entire interface, as well
as the typography.
It's something that feels very approachable,
and the little quirks make you feel a little less
stressed to begin podcasting.
And one of the things that I really appreciated
is their conversational tone and their descriptions.
We have some listener questions, and the first one
comes from Barbara.
BARBARA: Hi.
I'm Barbara.
I'm kind of new to design.
And I don't know, this might be a basic question,
but how do you use color to express brand?
Thanks.
YASMINE EVJEN: So you can do this a variety
of different ways, whether you're actually using the brand
colors in your UI.
But then there's also the ability
to add color and choose colors that kind of invoke meaning.
And so in the case of Anchor, they
have a variety of different colors for their tools,
and they're all very bright.
It makes you kind of happy when you look at them,
and it's not this scary thing.
I think if they would have chose some colors that
were a little bit more muted, I think
it would have been a little bit more
intimidating because the process would have felt a little bit
more formal and structured, like you are a pro
and you better know what you're doing.
But the fact that they used a lot of these really playful
color palette, it does make it feel like you're playing along,
and it's not stressful.
LIAM SPRADLIN: Yeah.
I think Anchor is really found the right balance between mood
and semantic meaning with color.
But I think the critical part of it
is that they've done the most important step of expressing
of color, which is just committing to it
and following through throughout the whole interface.
YASMINE EVJEN: We also have another question from Ebony.
So let's hear what Ebony has to say.
EBONY: Hey, Design Hotline, I had a question for you.
How can typography frame user perception?
YASMINE EVJEN: I'm going to give this one to you, Liam.
LIAM SPRADLIN: When choosing type for your app,
you have a chance to find a font that, like the color,
matches the mood and the expression of your app.
So for example, in Anchor, they use Karla a lot.
And the thing that's appealing about Karla,
and why it feels like it fits into that kind
of friendly, celebratory mood is that it's
a grotesque with a fairly modern structure, I would say.
But it feels approachable because of some of the things
that they play with in terms of stroke width and proportion.
I'm looking forward to continuing
to dig into these conversations with Design Hotline
and really talk to the community about the strategies
that we use as designers, but also the qualitative
experiences of what it's like to design a product.
YASMINE EVJEN: So that's Episode One of Design Hotline.
Thank you for listening.
Please send in your voice messages
so that we have something to talk about because if not, it's
just us two, and then it gets kind of boring.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Anchor has made podcasting really
approachable and easy to use.
Through their use of bright colors and typography,
they've been able to create a design system that's
consistent through all of their cross-platform experiences.
And they help you get started with podcasting
without having to jump through all of the hoops.
As product creators, we have a responsibility
to create things that are focused on human experience,
things that are centered.
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