Audio Content and Podcast Usability
Oristus — “The first part of this article will help you decide if you want to create podcasts and audio content. Assuming you want to dive into podcasting, then the second goal is to help you do it right; usability applies to podcasts.”
October 13th, 2004 at 9:33 am
Mistake - audio isn’t like the web. Web tends towards links and random, user directed hopping around to find stuff. Fine. That solves certain problems nicely.
Audio is more like a story. It has a start and an end, and material in the middle WHICH HAS TO BE EXPERIENCED IN SEQUENCE. It’s great for live events. That’s why radio continues to work. Also, it’s hard for users to get an idea of the value to them of an audio clip. You almost have to listen to the whole thing to determine it’s usefulness. With a text page on the web the user can vary the amount of time spent on a page. With audio, the pace is set by the creator. Users have minimal control over the way in which it is delivered.
Padcasting looks like a solution in search of a problem. There may be an appropriate problem out there for podcasting to solve but I don’t see it yet. It looks like just another delivery mechanism for audio, but without any killer advantages.